Population transfer

Beginning of Lebensraum, the Nazi German expulsion of Poles from central Poland, 1939

Population transfer or resettlement is a type of mass migration, often imposed by state policy or international authority and most frequently on the basis of ethnicity or religion but also due to economic development. Banishment or exile is a similar process, but is forcibly applied to individuals and groups. Population transfer differs more than simply technically from individually motivated migration, but at times of war, the act of fleeing from danger or famine often blurs the differences. If a state can preserve the fiction that migrations are the result of innumerable "personal" decisions, the state may be able to claim that it is not to blame for the displacement.

Often the affected population is transferred by force to a distant region, perhaps not suited to their way of life, causing them substantial harm. In addition, the process implies the loss of immovable property and substantial amounts of movable property when rushed. This transfer may be motivated by the more powerful party's desire to make other uses of the land in question or, less often, by security or disastrous environmental or economic conditions that require relocation.[citation needed]

The first known population transfers date back to the Middle Assyrian Empire in the 13th century BCE, with forced resettlement being particularly prevalent during the Neo-Assyrian Empire. The single largest population transfer in history was the Partition of India in 1947 that involved up to 12 million people in Punjab Province with a total of up to 20 million people across British India,[1][2][3][4] with the second largest being the flight and expulsion of Germans after World War II, which involved more than 12 million people.

Before the forcible deportation of Ukrainians (including thousands of children) to Russia during the Russian invasion of Ukraine,[5][6] the last major population transfer in Europe was the deportation of 800,000 ethnic Albanians during the Kosovo War in 1999.[7] Moreover, some of the largest population transfers in Europe have been attributed to the ethnic policies of the Soviet Union under Joseph Stalin. The best-known recent example caused by economic development is that resulting from the construction of the Three Gorges Dam in China.

  1. ^ Vazira Fazila-Yacoobali Zamindar (4 February 2013). "India–Pakistan Partition 1947 and forced migration". The Encyclopedia of Global Human Migration. doi:10.1002/9781444351071.wbeghm285. ISBN 9781444334890. Archived from the original on 22 January 2021. Retrieved 16 January 2021. Some 12 million people were displaced in the divided province of Punjab alone, and up to 20 million in the subcontinent as a whole.
  2. ^ Population Redistribution and Development in South Asia. Springer Science & Business Media. 2012. p. 6. ISBN 978-9400953093. Retrieved 7 September 2017.
  3. ^ "Rupture in South Asia" (PDF). United Nations High Commission for Refugees. Archived (PDF) from the original on 11 March 2016. Retrieved 16 January 2021.
  4. ^ Dr Crispin Bates (3 March 2011). "The Hidden Story of Partition and its Legacies". BBC. Archived from the original on 1 January 2021. Retrieved 16 January 2021.
  5. ^ "Deportation of Ukrainian children to Russia is war crime - UN". BBC News. 2023-03-16. Retrieved 2023-03-17.
  6. ^ Cite error: The named reference EuronewsUkraine was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  7. ^ "CASE INFORMATION SHEET: (IT-05-87/1) VLASTIMIR ĐORĐEVIĆ" (PDF). Archived (PDF) from the original on 2013-12-04. Retrieved 2013-12-22.

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