Chechen_Kurds
Chechen Kurds
Ethnic group
Chechen Kurds or Kurdified Chechens are ethnic Chechens who went through a process of Kurdification[6][7] after fleeing to Kurdistan during and after the Russian conquest of the Caucasus in the 1860s. Today, these Chechens are perceived as being of the "Chechen tribe" and "Lezgî tribe".[2]
Chechen families were first settled in other regions of the Ottoman Empire like the Balkans, but were since moved to Kurdistan by the Sublime Porte.[8] The Ottomans planted Chechen refugees in Kurdistan and Western Armenia to change the demographics, since they feared Armenian separatism and, later on, Kurdish separatism.[9]
Today, the Chechen population in Turkish Kurdistan is scattered among the Kurdish population and has been assimilated into it.[10]
About 200 to 300 Kurdified Chechen families live in Saidsadiq District, some 100 families in Penjwen District and about 200 in Sulaymaniyah city in Iraqi Kurdistan.[6]