Ukraine's Crimean Tatar Minority Marked 66th Anniversary of Deportation

SIMFEROPOL – On May 18, 1944, Soviet Army and Interior Ministry troops deported the entire Tatar population of Crimea – some 180,000 people – to Siberia and Central Asia on the orders of Soviet leader Josef Stalin. They were accused of collaboration with the Nazis and mass desertion. Thousands of people died along the journey.

In 1991, the Crimean Tatars received official permission to return to Crimea. They currently make up more than 12 percent of the Crimean Peninsula's population of some 2.1 million.

Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych issued a decree last week calling on the authorities "to provide all necessary conditions for marking the 66th anniversary of the deportation at the appropriate level."

Crimean Tatar leaders and activists have been holding commemorative gatherings and mourning ceremonies in Crimea since May 16, reports UNIAN.

Mustafa Dzhemilev, the leader of the Crimean Tatar parliament, or Mejlis, said on May 17 that the gatherings are not protest actions but acts of mourning.

On May 17 the Crimean Tatar youth held a memorial action and lit two thousand candles in memory of the event. The Crimean Tatars called the international community to recognize the deportation an act of genocide.

“Sixty-six years ago a tragic event took place, a crime against a whole nation. We call to recognize the deportation of the Crimean Tatars an act of genocide,” said to the journalists the honorary head of the Crimean Tatar youth center, Eskender Bariev.

The Day to Commemorate the Victims of the Deportation has been marked every year in Crimea since 1993.