FIENDISH HORRORS IN ARMENIA

Dominion, Volume 9, Issue 2578, 28 September 1915, Page 5

FIENDISH HORRORS IN ARMENIA

AN AWFUL STORY OF CRUELTY WAR OF EXTERMINATION By MeEraDh—Press Association—Copyright i London,-September 26. An awful story of cruelty to Armenians is related by an eye-witness in the ' "Daily Chronicle." Ho says history does; not record- such scenes. - . :! Besides many thousands killed, half a million Armenians have been deported, tho process beginning last April. The first step was that ot disarming them under pretext of"which there were many murders and' torturings. ' Tho Armenians .were then imprisgned in great numbers,: and< deportations followed, accompanied by massaqres. / Scarcely a man was left. * . ■ ' • The : Turks in tho Kharput province jnarketed the remainder. '■ ; From the highest, functionary to the . ■ simplest peasant they bought wives, and forcibly converted them to fslamism. Little, children were put upon the roads ■and wandored famished,-until many of them died of starvation. _ There were similar scenes in the Diarbekir provinco. Some' facilities were granted to those deported from other ' provinces, but- robbers and peasants looted and stripped their oaravans, killed the few remaining youths, : abducted 'women and girls, and'whipped .the old women along tho roads , until they dropped of exhaustion or died <f hunger. " ■ ' '■ .- • . f ' The. .eye-witness 'states that women who were deportedi from the Erzcroum province were left i on the Kharput plain without food, and died at the rote of fifty or sixty day. .; ; ■ A little §irl states that wnen the caravan arrived, at the Governor's office at Sarikichila ohildren were torn from their mothers' arms. The caravan was . forced to continue without them. As they arrived at eaoli-village tho wcroen were exposed at tho Governor's offices to allow the Mussuhnaus to take their pick'. v The : caravan Parting for Popert gradually dwindled, until fir.rjlly tho re- • maining women and children were thrown into the Euphrates before Erz- . iiiga. .: ■ .„ . :. Two German Eed Cross.nurses were . bo shocked' that ftey resigned.: and■ reported the atrocities to the Coustantinople Embassy. . i . Tho roads in many : provHwe3 .were littered with corpses. A Mussulman traveller, states : that during a nine hours' journey from Ma- , latia to Sivas, he 'encountered only corpses of men'and women. Asinenian soldiers' met the same fate at Erzeroum and Diarbekir, where they were sent ;to work on tho roads, and were butch-. ; ! ered..: Eighteen hundred - from Khaiput were Massacred. Many Armenians : sought to be converted to Islamism to escape their co-religionists' fate. Those ■ -who were Savas wero.notified that they • must first surrender their-children for education. The authorities at Kharput ■ ordered that women desiring conversion : must first marry a Musrolman. Many threw themselves in tho Euphrates with their babies. , : • • Evidently the Government is determined to end the Armenian question once for all by extermination. Washington,. September 25. In response to many appeals^;tho Government has instructed Mr. Henry. Morgan-Thau (Americau Ambassador . to Turkey) to investigate the Armenian massacres. Informatim. .received / /here states that. 450,000 have been killed and 600,000 rendered homeless or :_ex.iled. • Many American, philanthropists .. nro. supporting: a. .: fund for Armenian immigration to America, in accordance witt Mr. Morgan-Thau's suggestions. ,