Consequently, nearly 250,000 Crimean Tatars, including women and children, were forcibly put on freight trains headed to Central Asia. Furthermore, the Crimean Tatar men fighting in the ranks of the Soviet Army during WWII were discharged and sent to Soviet gulags in Siberia and the Urals. Tens of thousands of innocent people perished from disease and starvation during this deportation.

Russia’s recent illegal annexation of Crimea from Ukraine accentuated the tragic history of systematic extermination that the Crimean Tatars, once the majority on the peninsula, have experienced since the Russian conquest in the late 18th century. An increased awareness of the Sürgün as a crime against humanity may help prevent the same tragedy from repeating in the future.