On 18 May 1944 the deportation of the Crimean Tatars began. A total of 238,500 people were deported over the three days until 20 May 1944. Those deported were given no time to collect their personal belongings and were loaded onto cattle trains and moved out of Crimea, mostly to the Uzbek Soviet Socialist Republic. The forcible deportation was carried out on the orders of Joseph Stalin as collective punishment for alleged collaboration with the Nazi occupation regime during 1942-1943. The deportation is known as the Sürgünlik in Crimean Tatar. According to some estimates, more than 100,000 deportees died from starvation or disease as a result of deportation. Source: 'Deportation of the Crimean Tatars,' Wikipedia.