page_title: Deportation of the Chechens and Ingush
section_title: Casualties and death toll
hierarchical_section_title: Deportation of the Chechens and Ingush / Aftermath / Casualties and death toll
caption_attribution_description: Русский: Ингушская семья Газдиевых у тела умершей дочери. Казахстан. Депортация ингушей в 1944 году Eesti: Inguššia pere Gazdievs keha surnud tütart. Kasahstanis. Küüditamine Inguššia 1944 English: Ingush family Gazdievs mourns at the body of the deceased daughter. Kazakhstan. The deportation of the Ingush people in 1944 한국어: 잉 구쉬 가족은 죽은 딸의 몸을 Gazdievs. 카자흐스탄. 1944의 잉 구쉬의 추방 עברית: המשפחה אינגאש Gazdievs הגוף של הבת המתה. קזחסטן. גירוש אינגאש בשנת 1944 العربية: عائلة الإنغوش Gazdievs جثة المتوفى ابنه. كازاخستان. ترحيل انغوشيا في عام 1944
context_page_description: The Deportation of the Chechens and Ingush, also known as Aardakh, Operation Lentil; Ingush and Chechen: Вайнах махкахбахар Vaynah Mahkahbahar was the Soviet forced transfer of the whole of the Vainakh populations of the North Caucasus to Central Asia on February 23, 1944, during World War II. The expulsion was ordered by NKVD chief Lavrentiy Beria after approval by Soviet Premier Joseph Stalin, as a part of a Soviet forced settlement program and population transfer that affected several million members of non-Russian Soviet ethnic minorities between the 1930s and the 1950s.
  The deportation was prepared from at least October 1943 and 19,000 officers as well as 100,000 NKVD soldiers from all over the USSR participated in this operation. The deportation encompassed their entire nations, as well as the liquidation of the Checheno-Ingush Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic. The demographic consequences of this eviction were catastrophic and far reaching: of the 496,000 Chechens and Ingush who were deported, at least a quarter perished.
context_section_description: Many deportees died en route, and the extremely harsh environment of exile, especially considering the amount of exposure to thermal stress, killed many more. The temperatures in the Kazakh SSR would drop anywhere from −50 °C (−58 °F) during winter and then hit up to 50 °C (122 °F) during summer.
  They travelled in wagons that were locked from the outside, without light or water, during winter. Trains would stop and open the wagons only occasionally to bury the dead in the snow. The local people at the train stations were forbidden to help the sick passengers or to give them any medicine or water. Some Russian sources claim that 1,272 people died during this transit.  In 1948, there were 118,250 special settlers in Kazakh SSR "in extreme need in regard for food" and authorities reported thousands of children dying from undernourishment. Food rations were fixed at only 116 grams of flour and 56 grams of grain per day for each person, which was even below the standards of the captives in the Auschwitz concentration camp. (that standard being 300 grams of bread )
  The local authorities in Kyrgyzstan set up enough supplies for only four months. One mother tried to make soup out of grass for her children. According to official Soviet reports, 608,749 Chechen, Ingush, Karachay and Balkars were registered in exile in Central Asia by 1948. The NKVD gives the statistic of 144,704 people who died in 1944–48 alone: a death rate of 23.7% per all these groups. 101,036 Chechens, Ingush and Balkars died in Kazakhstan and 16,052 in Uzbekistan. Another archive record shows that 104,903 of the deported Chechens died by 1949. This means that their group suffered the highest death toll of all the deported peoples within the Soviet Union.
  Professor Jonathan Otto Pohl estimates the combined number of deaths among Chechen and Ingush exiles during transit and confinement in special settlements by 1949 at 123,000. Out of these deaths, Chechens comprised 100,000 and Ingush 23,000. Thomas McDonell also gives a figure of at least 100,000 Chechens who died from starvation and diseases in exile, but does not give a figure for the Ingush casualties. Tom K. Wong, Associate Professor of Political Science, estimates that at least 100,000 Vainakhs died in the first three years in exile, excluding those who perished during the transit and the round-ups. Historian William Flemming released calculations giving a minimum of 132,000 Chechens and Ingush who died between 1944 and 1950. In comparison, their number of births in that period was only 47,000. Thus, the Chechen and ingush population fell from 478,479 in 1944 to 452,737 in 1948. From 1939 to 1959, the Chechen population grew by 2.5%. In comparison, between 1926 and 1939, it grew 28%. Historian Alexander Nekrich stated that the net losses of Chechens between 1939 and 1959 (after allowing for wartime losses) were 131,000, and of Ingush 12,000. German journalist Lutz Kleveman determined that 150,000 people did not survive the first four years of winter cold in Central Asia. Estimates for the maximum deaths and demographic losses of the Chechen and Ingush range from about 170,000 to 200,000, thus ranging from a quarter of the total Chechen population to nearly a third being killed in those years. Chechen historians claim 400,000 perished in deportation and exile; using a presumably higher estimate for the number of deportees.
  The demographer Dalkhat Ediev, in a study of casualty figures for all ethnic groups that were singled out for "punishment" by Stalin, found that deaths due to the deportations included 125,500 of the Chechen deportees and 20,300 of the Ingush deportees, or 30.8% of the Chechens and 21.3% of the Ingush. Meanwhile, the short-term demographic losses are estimated at 51.1% for the Chechens and 47.9% for the Ingush. He estimates that the Chechen population dropped to a low of 285,000 and the Ingush to 78,800 people in October 1948. However, despite these heavy losses, the Chechens subsequently increased their fertility rates, which is seen by some as a manifestation of their resiliance and d
caption: An Ingush family mourning the death of their daughter in Kazakhstan
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