Around eight thousands of ethnic Meskhetians families want to return their homeland Georgia. For this Aim they have applied Georgian Embassies in different countries to come back. Most of the Applications were made by the Meskhetian families who live in Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Khirgizistan, USA, Russia, Ukraine, and Turkey.
The Arifovs left Azerbaijan three years ago to live in Akhlskhe, Georgia
Until 1944 Meskhetians lived in Meskheti and Javakheti along the Georgian-Turkish border. For many years they were classified as Turks. During The World War II, about 120,000 Meskhetians were exiled from Georgia to Central Asia, as part of Stalin’s policy toward “unreliable” ethnic groups.
On 11 July 2007, under the obligations assumed by Georgia in 1999, on its entry to the Council of Europe, the State adopted a law “on Repatriation of Persons forcefully sent into exile from the Soviet Socialist Republic of Georgia by the Former USSR in the 40’s of the 20th Century”. The Law offers a formal ground for the return of so-called forced migrants deported from Georgia in 1944 and their descendants. Continue reading
