CENTRAL ASIAN KURDS

During the Soviet era, the Kurds of the Caucasus were exiled to Central Asia twice: first in 1937 and then in 1944.

For security purposes, the Soviet Union followed a policy and relocated ethnic groups living along the borders—whose relatives resided on the other side of the same borders —to the inner parts of the country, labeling them “unreliable elements,” and exiled many such groups.

The first major deportation took place on October 28, 1937, when the People’s Commissariat of Internal Affairs of the USSR forcibly relocated Kurds living along the borders of Armenia and Azerbaijan (with the exception of the Yezidi Kurds) to Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Uzbekistan.

The second major deportation, which took place in 1944, was broader in scope and included all non-Georgian ethnic groups living in Georgia (Ahiska Turks, Chechens, Laz, Ingush, Hemshinli, Dagestanis…).

The deportees were dispersed to villages hundreds of kilometers apart; no more than ten families were settled in the same village, and visits to relatives from one village to another were permitted on only special written permission. After Stalin’s death, starting in 1956, the exiles were permitted to return to their villages of origin; however, those exiled from Armenia were forced to settle in Azerbaijan because the Armenian government did not grant permission for their return. Those who chose not to return were able to come together and build new villages after the lifting of martial law, under which travelling from one village to another was subjected to special written permission.

The third wave of exile took place during the conflict that began with Armenia’s annexation of the Nagorno-Karabakh region in 1988. Muslim Kurds living in Armenia were forced to migrate to Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Russia.

Today, an estimated 200,000 Kurds live in Central Asia.