Circassian Genocide

"There were human bones thrown at the seaside for seven years. Crows made their nests from men's beards and women's hair. The sea was throwing human skulls like crushed watermelons for seven years. I don't even want my enemy to see what I saw there."

- An old Circassian who survived the genocide The Circassian Genocide, also known as the Circassian Exile, was the systematic ethnic cleansing, killing, forced migration and expulsion of Circassian individuals from their historical homeland Circassia, which roughly encompassed the major part of the North Caucasus and the northeast shore of the Black Sea by the Russian Empire after the Russo-Circassian War also known as the Great Caucasus War in the last quarter of the 19th century. While most Circassians were killed, some who were exiled moved primarily to the Ottoman Empire.

Circassians, the indigenous peoples of the North Caucasus, were ethnically cleansed from their homeland at the end of the Russo-Circassian War by Russia. The expulsion was launched before the end of the war in 1864 and it was mostly completed by 1867. The peoples planned for removal were mainly the Circassians (or Adyghe), Ubykhs, and Abaza, but Ingush, Arshtins, Chechens, Ossetians, and Abkhaz were also heavily affected.

The Imperial Russian Army rounded up people, driving them from their villages to ports on the Black Sea, where they awaited ships provided by the neighboring Ottoman Empire. An unknown number of deportees perished during the process. Some died from epidemics among crowds of deportees both while awaiting departure and while languishing in their Ottoman Black Sea ports of arrival. Others perished when ships underway sank during storms. Calculations including those taking into account the Russian government's own archival figures have estimated a loss of 90% to 97% of the Circassian nation in the process.

During the same period, other Muslim ethnic groups originating in the Caucasus also moved to the Ottoman Empire and Persia.