 In March 1944, 3,240 ethnic Azeris and Kurds living in the capital city of Tbilisi were forcibly relocated to rural parts of Kvemo Kartli, as persons "deliberately avoiding working in the agricultural sector".Only 31 Azeri families were permitted to stay in Tbilisi, mostly military personnel, handicapped war veterans and university students.In 1944, in the midst of the population transfer in the Soviet Union, a decree was issued by the Moscow-seated government, according to which tens of thousands of residents of the southern border regions of Georgia were to be forcibly relocated to Central Asia for national security reasons.