The Office of the President of Ukraine has handed over to the Mejlis of the Crimean Tatar people the declassified documents of the NKVD (People’s Commissariat for Internal Affairs) regarding the deportation of the Crimean Tatars in 1944.
The documents were given to head of the Mejlis Refat Chubarov, the presidential website said.
“A month ago, during the examination conducted by the Kyiv Institute of Forensics, we received information and supporting documents regarding the forced deportation of Crimean Tatars, the bullying and genocide committed by the Soviet regime. The president instructed law enforcement agencies to collect and systematize the information that is available in the archives and has not been made public yet,” said Deputy Head of the Presidential Administration Andriy Smyrnov following the meeting.
He stressed that this is only the first stage in the publication of declassified documents related to the genocide of the Crimean Tatar people. Further, the documents will be compiled, cataloged and made public.
“This is a terrible story about the way people were carried for 28 days without water and without food, about terrible working conditions. These are facts about the number of people who were simply killed over a certain period of time. Living conditions can hardly be called human – people slept in wagons, on damp land, very often were suffering from serious illnesses and were dying,” said Smyrnov.
Discovered and declassified documents will also be made public in the media.
Chubarov thanked the Presidential Office for making the documents public.
“These documents are the reports of the departments of the NKVD of the USSR. This is not the first time we have received declassified documents from the archives of Ukraine, from other institutions. This is very important for us, since the Verkhovna Rada adopted a resolution recognizing the forcible deportation of the Crimean Tatar people as genocide. These documents contain specific fates of people in detail. This is an exciting moment for the people as a whole,” he stressed.
Andriy Smyrnov also suggested that representatives of the Mejlis create a joint working group with the Presidential Office to establish historical justice in the issue of deportation of Crimean Tatars.
“We must make efforts to find the maximum number of documents that have remained in the archives and are classified. Therefore, you can count on us,” he promised.
