On March 26, 1993, the Supreme Council of Crimea adopted a resolution “On the Day of Remembrance of the Victims of Deportation.” With this decision, it recognized that in 1944 the Soviet authorities committed an illegal act of forcible eviction of Crimean Tatars, Armenians, Bulgarians, Greeks, and Germans from their homeland.
This step was based on the Declaration of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR of November 14, 1989 “On Recognition of Repressive Acts Against Peoples Subjected to Forced Resettlement as Illegal and Criminal and Ensuring Their Rights”.
The horrific scale of the Crimean Tatar tragedy In 1944, 238,500 people were deported from Crimea, 46.2% of whom died in the first years due to the terrible conditions of exile, hunger, and disease.
A wound that does not heal
The deportation of the Crimean Tatar people is a crime that still has consequences. It will remain an open wound until it is internationally condemned and its consequences fully addressed.
However, Russia has not only failed to condemn the crime of the Soviet regime, but has also resumed its policy of exiling Crimean Tatars.
In 2014, after the occupation of Crimea, thousands of Crimean Tatars were once again forced to flee their land due to political persecution. After the full-scale invasion in 2022, the situation deteriorated even further – the occupation authorities began mass mobilization of Crimean Tatars into the Russian army, which is another act of forced assimilation and destruction of the indigenous people’s identity.
Impunity breeds new crimes. That is why the world must officially condemn the deportation of the Crimean Tatar people as an act of genocide so that this will never happen again.
Who has already recognized the deportation as genocide?
To date, seven countries have recognized the deportation of the Crimean Tatar people as genocide:
Ukraine
Lithuania
Latvia
Canada
Poland
Estonia
Czech Republic
The Crimean Tatar Resource Center and the Mejlis of the Crimean Tatar People are systematically working with the parliaments of different countries to expand this list.
We have prepared a package of documents on the recognition of the deportation of the Crimean Tatar people as an act of genocide and have already sent it to 40 countries. It includes: the appeal of the Mejlis of the Crimean Tatar people to all parliaments of the UN member states to recognize the deportation of the Crimean Tatar people as an act of genocide; the appeal of the Crimean Tatar Resource Center to the parliaments of the world; copies of the resolution of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine “On Recognition of the Genocide of the Crimean Tatar People”; the legal qualification of the deportation of the Crimean Tatar people as an international crime against the indigenous people.
We continue this work so that the world recognizes the truth: the deportation of the Crimean Tatar people is genocide, and Russia must be held accountable for its crimes.