On May 18, Ukraine commemorates the victims of the genocide of the Crimean Tatar people - one of the most tragic pages of our common history. It was on this day in 1944 that the Soviet totalitarian regime began the mass deportation of Crimean Tatars from their historical homeland - Crimea. This crime was a deliberate attempt to destroy the Crimean Tatars as an indigenous people, depriving them of their home, language, culture, historical memory and right to a future.

The deportation operation began at dawn on May 18, 1944. Thousands of people — mostly women, children, and the elderly — were forcibly removed from their homes. By the end of May 19, the deportation had reached over 165,000 people. In total, 47,885 families — 193,865 people — were deported, including over 92,000 children under the age of 16. The time allotted for the gathering was a matter of minutes. People were loaded into freight cars that were not equipped to transport people, without sufficient food, water, or medical care. For many, this journey was their last: thousands of Crimean Tatars died during the forced relocation, and tens of thousands in the first years of exile due to hunger, disease, and inhumane living conditions.

Despite decades of exile, repression and bans, the Crimean Tatar people have not stopped fighting for the right to return home. For decades, Crimean Tatars have fought for the opportunity to return to Crimea, restoring their communities, language, traditions, culture and state institutions. The mass return to their historical homeland began in the late 1980s, and already in independent Ukraine, the Crimean Tatar people were given the opportunity to openly talk about the tragedy they had experienced and restore justice.

Today, the memory of the victims of the genocide of the Crimean Tatar people is not only a tribute to the past. It is our moral duty to those who survived the tragedy and to future generations. It is a reminder of the price of human indifference and that the crimes of totalitarianism must not be forgotten.