Hazara in Europe ( prs, هزارههای اروپا) are people of
Hazara descent living in
Europe
Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a subcontinent of Eurasia and it is located entirel ...
. Today more than one hundred thousand are residents of Europe. The vast majority form part of what is sometimes called the "
Hazara diaspora".
History
The Hazaras have encountered intense persecution for centuries.
In the late 1800s, much of the
Hazarajat
Hazaristan ( fa, هزارستان, Hazāristān), or Hazarajat ( fa, هزارهجات, Hazārajāt) is a mostly mountainous region in the central highlands of Afghanistan, among the Koh-i-Baba mountains in the western extremities of the ...
, their mountainous homeland in central Afghanistan, was seized by
Pashtun
Pashtuns (, , ; ps, پښتانه, ), also known as Pakhtuns or Pathans, are an Iranian ethnic group who are native to the geographic region of Pashtunistan in the present-day countries of Afghanistan and Pakistan. They were historically re ...
and other tribes.
This, together with the more recent Soviet invasion in 1979 prompted mass exodus.
A further wave fled the country as the largely ethnic Pashtun
Taliban
The Taliban (; ps, طالبان, ṭālibān, lit=students or 'seekers'), which also refers to itself by its state name, the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, is a Deobandi Islamic fundamentalist, militant Islamist, jihadist, and Pasht ...
took control of the Hazarajat in 1998, massacring thousands of Hazaras.
See also
*
Hazara diaspora
*
Hazara Australians
*
Hazara Indonesians
References
{{reflist
Hazara diaspora