Ukrainian Crimean Tatars activists took part on May 18, 2020, in Kyiv in a car caravan to commemorate the 76th anniversary of the Crimea Tatars deportation.
Close to 50 participants on 30 cars gathered with Ukrainian flags and flags of Crimean Tatars outside of the International Exhibition Centre before riding in their cars through Kyiv to Independence square.
On May 18-20, 1944, the Soviet Union deported the entire Crimean Tatar population to Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, and other parts of Central Asia for alleged collusion with Nazi Germany.
The People’s Commissariat of Internal Affairs — known in the Russian-language as the NKVD — carried out the deportation on the orders of the State Commissariat of Defense.
Overall, more than 180,000 Crimean Tatars were deported from Crimea to Central Asia. Around 45 percent of them lost their lives in the course of the deportation. More would perish due to famine and diseases in the winter of 1944-45. More than 80,000 houses and over 500,000 head of cattle would be confiscated from the Crimean Tatars, and 112 personal libraries, 646 libraries at primary schools, and 221 libraries at secondary schools would be destroyed.
The Soviet authorities would close mosques in Yevpatoria, Bakhchysarai, Sevastopol, Feodosia, Chernomorske.
The deportation was intended as collective punishment against the Crimean Tatars for alleged collaboration with Nazi Germany.
On May 11, 2016, the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine approved an appeal to the international community, urging it to condemn Russia’s ban of the Mejlis, the Crimean Tatars’ representative body, on the territory of Crimea and to recognize the deportation of the Crimean Tatars as genocide.
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