Refugees of the Greek Civil War
During and after the Greek Civil War of 1946–1949, members and or supporters of the defeated Communist forces fled Greece as political refugees. The collapse of the Democratic Army of Greece (DSE) and subsequent evacuation of the Communist Party of Greece (KKE) to Tashkent in 1949 led thousands of people to leave the country. It has been estimated that by 1949, over 100,000 people had left Greece for Yugoslavia and the Eastern Bloc, particularly the USSR and Czechoslovakia. These included tens of thousands of child refugees who had been forcefully evacuated by the KKE. The war wrought widespread devastation right across Greece and particularly in the regions of Macedonia and Epirus, causing many people to continue to leave the country even after it had ended. Greek Civil War After the invading Axis powers were defeated, fighting promptly broke out between the Democratic Army of Greece (DSE) and the Greek Government which had returned from exile. Many people chose to return their allegiances as to what they regarded as the rightful government of Greece. Soon the Greek Civil War had broken out between the two opposing sides. Many peasants, leftists, socialists, Pontic Greeks, Caucasus Greeks, ethnic minorities from Northern Greece like