The Sejm of the Republic of Poland has recognized the deportation of Crimean Tatars from Crimea in 1944 and its consequences as an act of genocide against the Crimean Tatar people, according to the Mission of the President of Ukraine in the Autonomous Republic of Crimea.

"Today, the Sejm of the Republic of Poland approved by 414 votes (16 voted against and two refrained from voting) the Resolution to Perpetuate the Memory of the Victims of the Genocide against the Crimean Tatar People," it said on the Telegram channel on Friday.

In addition to speaking about the events of 1944, the document also mentions Russia's crimes committed during its armed aggression against Ukraine.

The President's Mission recalled that in May 1944 more than 200,000 Crimean Tatars were deported to Central Asia and Ural over two days by Stalin's criminal order. At least 46% of the Crimean Tatar deportees died on the way to the destination and in the first years of their deportation. Almost no indigenous population was left on the peninsula. The government forces the local population to total Russification and destroyed even a mere mention of Crimean Tatars.

This year marks 80 years since the time of the deportation. These events were recognized as genocide by Ukraine in 2015, Latvia and Lithuania in 2019, and Canada in 2022.

In May of this year, the Verkhovna Rada called on foreign governments and parliaments, international organizations and parliamentary assemblies to recognize the 1944 deportation as an act of genocide against the Crimean Tatar people.