The Ukrainian World Congress released the following statement on May 18.
The Ukrainian World Congress (UWC) pays tribute to the innocent victims of the deportation of Crimean Tatar people in 1944 and supports the call of the Mejlis of the Crimean Tatar people to the United Nations to recognize it as an act of genocide of totalitarian Soviet regime.
Seventy-six years ago, on May 18, the Soviet authorities began the planned deportation of over 200,000 ethnic Crimean Tatars from Crimea. The majority of these victims were women, children and elderly people. Almost half of them perished during the forced deportation because of starvation, illnesses, torture and slave labor in exile in deserted parts of Central Asia. The material and spiritual heritage of Crimean Tatars in Crimea had been destroyed. Libraries, schools and mosques had been closed, thousands of historic names were changed.