On May 18, 1944 by order of Stalin the deportation of the Crimean Tatars begins.
According to the decree of the State Commissariat of Defense of the USSR from 1944, the Crimean Tatars and other ethnic groups were forcibly deported by the Stalinist regime from the territory of Crimea to Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and the distant regions of Russia. They were accused of collaborationism with fascist Germany. Nearly 32,000 people from the NKVD have been mobilized so that 185,000 Crimean Tatars can be evicted in the coming days.
According to the National Movement of the Crimean Tatars, nearly 90 thousand people died during the first 4 years of the deportation. In January 1974, the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR lifted the ban on Crimean Tatars, Greeks, Armenians and Bulgarians returning to Crimea.
The deportation of the Crimean Tatars, which began on May 18, 1944, was one of the greatest crimes committed by the Soviet regime during World War II. For more than 20 years, the criminal nature of these actions has been completely denied in the USSR.
Although as early as 1967 the Soviet Union recognized the unfounded accusations against all Crimean Tatars in collaboration with the Germans, they were never given the right to return to their historical homeland until the very collapse of communist totalitarianism. The Crimean Tatars were deported to remote regions of Siberia, the Urals, Central Asia, where they found themselves without documents, under a curfew, without the right to move even for the purpose of searching for families lost during the emigration.
The number of “special immigrants“ was filled in 1945, when towards the end of the war soldiers and officers who fought against fascism were also declared “traitors“ and sent into exile to their families. The harsh living conditions in the special settlements, which are complicated by the new climate and infectious diseases, lead to the death rate among the deportees, which is actually increased by the lack of medical care.
After Ukraine declared independence in 1991, it showed sympathy for the Crimean Tatars, allowing them to return to their homelands. For this purpose, the authorities have taken a number of normative acts to facilitate the process of their return, the main act being the “Ratification of the Protocol to the Agreement on Matters Related to Restoring the Rights of Deported Persons, National Minorities and Peoples”.
Other important documents are: the Government Program for the Settlement and Settlement of Deported Crimean Tatars and Persons of Other Nationalities, adopted in 2006, valid until 2015; Decree of the President of Ukraine dated 14.05.10 No. 615 “On additional measures for the settlement of the Crimean Tatars, other persons deported on national grounds and their heirs who have returned or are returning for permanent residence in Ukraine”.
Currently, 266 thousand Tatars have returned to Crimea. According to various estimates, 30 to 100,000 Crimean Tatars live outside Ukraine.
The annexation of Crimea by the Russian Federation in March 2014 renewed the problem of the Crimean Tatars' struggle for their rights. The occupation administration of Crimea, for the first time in recent history, banned the traditional mourning rally in the center of Simferopol on May 18.