ARMENIAN MASSACRES.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXVIII, Issue 25, 28 September 1915, Page 6

ARMENIAN MASSACRES.

A Pa LIC Yt OP RMINAT Io N. U.vmn Press Association. London, September 20. An awful story of cruelty to the Armenians is related by an eye-wit-noss in the Daily Chronicle'. He says, that history does not record such tel** riLie scenes. ■■ Besides many thousfanda killed,' half of the, . Armenians have been,..deported. Beginning in last April, the Hist .step. 1 was that of disarming them,i under the pretext whereof there wore many, murders ami toy-; timings. Then the people were imprisoned on masse, and deportations followed, accompanied by massacres, .until scarcely a man was left. The Turks in the Kharput province marketed the remainder, from the highest functionary to the simplest peasant, and bought their wives, forcibly converting them to Islamism. The, children famished until many died of starvation. There were similar scenes., in Diarbekir province. ,Spine,! facilities,.were, granted deportees in other provinces, hnt rob-, bers a,nd -peasants looted and stripped I the .caravans, killed Ahe few remain* ( ing youths, abducted the women and girls, and whipped the old women | along the road until they dropped from .exhaustion . and died of hunger. The .eye-witness states that women .who, were .deported # from Erzeroum province wore left in'the Kharput. plain foodless, and' diod at the'rate of fifty or sixty daily. , ’ A little girl states .that when a caravan, arrived at the Governor’s office av Sarakjchila, children were tpffk' from their,..mothers’ arms,.and the caravan was forced to continue without them. As they, arrived at. each village the .w.ouKut were exposed at the Governor’s .Offices ,to alfowj ..Mussulmans' to take tjmir pick. A caravan which, started, frprn Pa port gradually dwindled, amk finally the remaining women and children, .wore thrmyn into the Euphrates, beforq- Eyzinga. Two German - Bed Cross purses .were so shocked that they resigned and reported the atrocities to the Constantinople Embassy, .The roads in many provinces are littered with corpses. A Mussulman traveller states that during a nine hours’ journey from, Malatia to Sivas he encountered only corpses of men and women and Armenian soldiers. The same fatp Awaited those at,Erzeroum and - Diatekir, - wjipre , they were Sent" to work on the roads and then, hutc^iered. - ■- Eighteen, ..humjred" f.rom Khffvput were, massacred* ; . ; ■ Many Armenians sottght, to ,be. con-j verted to T'jlaraiam, to escape their, co-; religionists’' fate-* Those at Sivas were, notified'Wati tWdf„ hfU*t ftiWibsurren-' cler their 1 children for. education. Thei authorities* b'MOted women desiring conversion that they must; themselves into the Euphrates with their babies. Evidently the i Government has determined to end the Armenian question .once and fqr all by extermination.