President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan commemorated the 81st anniversary of the forced deportation of Crimean Tatars from their ancestral homeland with a message of sorrow and solidarity.
“On the 81st anniversary of their deportation from their ancestral lands, I remember with sorrow the pain endured by our Crimean Tatar Turkish brothers and sisters. I pray for God’s mercy upon our kin who were martyred during the exile. As Turkey, we will continue to defend the rights of our Crimean brothers and stand firmly by their side at all times,” President Erdoğan stated.
A Dark Chapter in History: The Crimean Tatar Deportation of 1944
The deportation of the Crimean Tatars remains one of the most tragic and shameful episodes in 20th-century history—a systematic act of ethnic cleansing orchestrated by the Soviet regime under Joseph Stalin. On May 18, 1944, nearly 200,000 Crimean Tatars were forcibly removed from their homeland in the Crimean Peninsula in a brutal campaign of mass punishment.
Accused collectively of collaborating with Nazi Germany—a charge broadly recognized today as baseless and politically motivated—the entire Crimean Tatar population, including women, children, and the elderly, was loaded into cattle cars under the orders of Stalin’s NKVD (the Soviet secret police). They were transported in inhumane conditions to distant regions of Central Asia, primarily Uzbekistan, but also to parts of Siberia and the Urals.
The deportation was not only an act of exile but a death sentence for many. It is estimated that nearly half of the deported Crimean Tatars perished due to starvation, disease, and exposure during the journey and in the harsh exile conditions that followed. Families were torn apart, cultural institutions dismantled, and an entire people was uprooted from its centuries-old homeland in a matter of days.
For decades, the Soviet Union denied the Crimean Tatars the right to return. It wasn’t until the late 1980s, during the perestroika period, that a limited repatriation process began. Even then, those who returned faced enormous bureaucratic and societal hurdles, including denial of property rights and discrimination.
Following the illegal annexation of Crimea by the Russian Federation in 2014, the plight of the Crimean Tatars once again drew international concern. The occupying authorities have been accused of suppressing Tatar cultural identity, closing down their media outlets, banning their representative assembly (the Mejlis), and imprisoning activists on fabricated charges. Reports of disappearances, torture, and harassment have raised fears of a renewed campaign of intimidation against the indigenous people of Crimea.
Turkey has consistently voiced strong support for the rights of Crimean Tatars on the international stage. Ankara views the 1944 deportation as a historical injustice that must never be forgotten, and continues to advocate for the protection of the Crimean Tatars’ cultural heritage, civil rights, and territorial integrity.
As the Crimean Tatar community around the world marks this somber anniversary, President Erdoğan’s message echoes a broader Turkish commitment to historical truth, justice, and solidarity with those who have suffered at the hands of imperial oppression.
