Türkiye’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Friday marked the 81st anniversary of the mass exile of Ahiska Turks from Georgia’s Ahiska (Akhaltsikhe/Meskheti) region, commemorating those who perished during the 1944 exile.

“We still feel in our hearts the pain of nearly one hundred thousand Ahiska Turks being deported from their ancestral homeland on November 14, 1944,” Erdogan said on the Turkish social media platform NSosyal.

He said he prays for Allah’s mercy upon “our kinsmen who lost their lives,” adding that he shares the pain of all Ahiska Turks on the 81st anniversary of the exile.

In a written statement, the Turkish Foreign Ministry said that on Nov. 14, 1944, nearly 100,000 Ahiska Turks were forcibly uprooted from their centuries-old homeland in the Ahiska region of the then-Georgian Soviet Republic — bordering Türkiye — and sent to remote areas of the Soviet Union.

Thousands died from hunger, cold, and disease during the harsh journey, it added.

“On the 81st anniversary of the deportation, we remember with sorrow this great tragedy and respectfully commemorate our brothers and sisters who lost their lives in exile,” the statement said.

It emphasised that despite immense suffering, the surviving Ahiska Turks managed to preserve their identity, language, faith, and cultural traditions, passing them on to future generations.

Türkiye also reiterated its hope that the process enabling Meskhetian Turks to return to their ancestral homeland will be completed successfully.

1944 deportation

On November 14, 1944, Soviet authorities accused residents of Akhaltsikhe, capital of the Meskheti region in southwestern Georgia, of “threatening state security.”

Within hours, more than 90,000 people — including women, children, and the elderly — were forcibly removed from their homes and loaded into cargo wagons.

The deportees were transported for over a month to remote parts of Central Asia, with around 17,000 dying on the way from hunger, cold, and disease, according to historians’ estimates.