Chechnya?

What would you say if I told you that it was World Chechnya Day last Saturday 23rd February? You might ask me “Who is Chechnya?” “What is Chechnya?” “Where is Chechnya?” The truth is, most of us don’t even realise that Chechnya is actually a country in Europe. So how can be expected to understand the significance of World Chechnya Day?

Image by CNN.

Well, let me give you a little background. On the 23rd February, 1944 the ruthless dictator Joseph Stalin ordered the deportation of the entire Chechen and Ingush population to Central Asia. Around 500,000 people, including men, women and children were loaded up into Studebaker trucks at gunpoint to be transported. On reaching the railway points, the ‘contents of the trucks’ were crammed into cattle-trucks with no food and minimal clothing. The elderly, pregnant or anyone else deemed to much hassle to transport were killed instantly. A clear example of this is an instance of when 700 women, children and elderly were burnt alive in the mountain village of Khaibakh. Such massacres were not even rare leaving mountain villages smouldering for weeks after.

Only around half of the 500,000 people who were forcibly transported actually survived. Those who did were left facing the biting winters of Siberia and Central Asia. The truth is, Stalin’s method of erasing the entire Chechen and Ingush population from their land was brutally effective. Within days every reference to Chechnya was removed from official maps, records and encyclopaedias.

60 long years after Stalin committed such an evil deed, the European Parliament passed a motion recognising this catastrophe as Genocide.

So how is it possible that we’ve not heard of this terrible day when such atrocities were committed? You tell me.