The deportation (enforced exile) of the Crimean Tatar people – the genocide started by Stalin on May 18, 1944 is still an ongoing crime against humanity.
The head of the secret police Lavrentiy Beria proudly reported to Moscow about 191,044 people who were expelled from their historical homeland Crimea. Almost all women, children and the elderly. They were deported to Siberia, the Urals and Central Asia.
Then the following 20 years of wandering and humiliation took the lives of almost half of the nation. The system of special settlements existed until 1956.
In addition to physical destruction, the Soviet authorities tried to erase everything associated or somehow connected with the indigenous Crimean Tatar people: cities, villages, rivers and lakes were renamed … mosques and madrasahs were demolished, theatres and ensembles were closed, books and newspapers were shredded.
The historical and cultural heritage of the whole nation was oppressed. The Crimean Tatars were excluded from the list of nations of USSR. New hardships were ahead for thousands of people.
But despite the fact that Crimean Tatars found themselves in incredibly difficult conditions in places of exile they struggled for their lives and their right to return back to Crimea! Moscow responded with camps and repressions. Until 1989, the Crimean Tatar people were prohibited from appearing or even travelling to their homeland. Those who attempted to return back home became arrested or subjected to secondary deportation.
The unpunished evil reared its tail in 2014. Again, tortures and repressions, arrests and detentions and on February 24, 2022, Moscow finally threw off its mask.
Today, the deportation of the Crimean Tatar people is recognized as genocide by Ukraine, Lithuania, Latvia, Canada, Poland, Estonia and Czech Republic but this crime requires global condemnation.
If the crime is not condemned – it will be repeated again and again! The criminal must be punished!