Soviet Mass Deportations Begin

Date: March 25, 1949 • Location: Vanavara, Russian Federation

The Soviet Union began mass deportations of more than 90,000 "undesirable" people from the Baltic states to Siberia.

Operation Priboi was the code name for the biggest illegal Stalin-era Soviet mass deportation from the Baltic states on 25–28 March 1949. Also known as the March deportation. More than 90,000 Estonians, Latvians and Lithuanians, labeled as "enemies of the state", were deported to forced settlements in inhospitable Siberian areas of the Soviet Union. Over 70% of the deportees were either women, or children under the age of 16.