Deportation of the Meskhetian Turks (1944)

On November 14, 1944, the Meskhetian Turks were forcefully evicted from Georgia under the pretense of "fortifying strategically vulnerable borders."

The supposition at the time was that the Soviet Union planned to attack Turkey, and the Meskhets might side with the latter.

Within 24 hours, over 100,000 Meskhetian Turks were forced from their homes, herded into wagons meant for livestock, and exiled to the deserts and steppes of Central Asia and Kazakhstan. Along the way and over the first four months in these strange places, 17,000 people died.

At the end of World War II, the Akhaltsikh territory of Georgia was declared a "frontier zone" of limited civilian access into which Turks were not only forbidden to resettle but even to visit briefly to pay their respects to buried ancestors

Violating this restriction was punishable by imprisonment or exile to Siberia for 25 years.

In 1989, the Soviet government lifted the restrictions, but Georgian nationalist officials objected.

"There is no room for Turks in Georgia," declared the advocates of this political block.

This was the case up until June 1989, when Uzbek extremists took part in a horrible mass slaughter of the Turks in the Fergana Valley.

According to official (and most probably low) figures, 97 people died, over 1,000 were wounded, and 752 houses were burned to the ground. Before the massacre, about 100,000 Turks lived in Uzbekistan. Now fewer than 20,000 remain.