From 25 to 28 March 1949 the Operation Priboi (“Coastal Surf” in English) took place. Soviet authorities forcibly deported more than 90,000 Estonians, Latvians and Lithuanians to inhospitable areas of the USSR. Over 70% of the deportees were women, and children under the age of 16.
While presented as a fight against the “enemies of the people”, the mass expulsion, also known as March deportation, was intended to facilitate collectivisation and to eliminate the support base for the armed resistance of the Forest Brothers against the Soviet occupation.