Thanks to the album Hostages of the Occupation, prepared by the Crimean Tatar Resource Center, residents of mainland Ukraine and the international community were able to find out how the occupation of Crimea affected the destinies of different people.
Through the efforts of our team, we collected 20 stories of Crimean Tatar families whose lives changed dramatically after 2014. Some of them, despite repression and persecution, remained in their historical homeland, and some were forced to leave Crimea.
The occupation of Crimea by the Russian Federation in 2014 caused dramatic changes in the lives of thousands of people. According to unofficial data, today more than 100,000 people have been forced to leave their homes. Half of them are representatives of the indigenous Crimean Tatar people.
How do these people live? How has their life changed? What challenges do they face? How are they fighting for a brighter future? What do they dream about?
You can get answers to these questions by taking a closer look at the stories of 20 families: 10 of which became internally displaced, and the remaining 10 still remain on the peninsula.
This album will immerse you in the fates of people who, unfortunately, became hostages of the occupation of Crimea.
We hope that after reading these stories you will understand that the indigenous Crimean Tatar people have a clear civic position, for which they pay a very high price every day.