23 February 2008, 11:41
In Ingushetia, deportation years are thought to be most tragic in Ingush history
Today, we mark 64 years from the date of mass deportation of Ingushes and Chechens to Kazakhstan and Central Asia.
On February 23, 1944, under the order of the USSR leadership, headed by Joseph Stalin, all the people were deported and violently moved into the steppe regions of Kazakhstan and Central Asia. The Chechen-Ingush Republic was cancelled, and its territory was split among the neighbouring regions.
According to official data, over 90,000 Ingushes were deported from the territory of the Chechen-Ingush Autonomous Republic of the former USSR. According to unofficial statistics, over 150,000 persons were deported. More than half of them died in the way and during the first years of exile from cold, famine and diseases. The right to return home was granted to survivors only 14 years later - in 1957.
People in Ingushetia are still thinking that the years of exile were the most tragic years in the centuries-old history of the nation.
On November 14, 1989, the USSR rehabilitated all the repressed nations, having recognized at the supreme state level all the repressive acts adopted against them to be illegal and criminal.
In 1991, the Law was passed "On Rehabilitation of Repressed Nations".
In 2004, the European Parliament recognized the fact of deportation of Chechens and Ingushes in 1944 to be an act of genocide.
Author: Timur Khamkhoyev, CK correspondent
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