On May 18, Ukrainians commemorated the memory of the victims of the Soviet deportation of Crimean Tatars. Engineered by Soviet leader Joseph Stalin in 1944, virtually the entire Crimean Tatar population was rounded up and exiled from their homeland in the Crimean peninsula in the south of Ukraine. In just three days in May 1944, between 180,000 and 200,000 people, adults and children, were expelled from their homes and put on crowded trains to be resettled in Central Asia and the Ural mountains. The official reason for the deportation was tied to false treason charges brought against the whole population by the Stalin regime.
Global Voices: Ukraine commemorates 77th anniversary of Crimean Tatar deportation
A man in a mask lights candles forming the Emblem of the Crimean Tatars as he commemorates the 76th anniversary of the deportation of the indigenous population of the Crimea by the Soviet Union, at the Independence Square in Kyiv on May 18, 2020. Crimea's Tatars commemorated 76 years since their deportation by Soviet dictator Stalin in 1944.
