All 240,000 Crimean Tatars were deported '' en masse '' , in a form of collective punishment , on 17 – 18 May 1944 as " special settlers " to the Uzbek Soviet Socialist Republic and other distant parts of the Soviet Union . This event is called Sürgün in the Crimean Tatar language ; the few who escaped were shot on sight or drowned in scuttled barges , and within months half their number had died of cold , hunger , exhaustion and disease . Many of them were re-located to toil as forced labourers in the Soviet GULAG system
deported
Deportation of the Crimean Tatars
Crimean Tatars