EXODUS OF ARMENIANS

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 968, 10 May 1930, Page 30

EXODUS OF ARMENIANS

DROUGHT RUINS THE CROPS IN ANATOLIA MIGRATION TO SYRIA What appears to he a general I exodus of Armenians from the Turkish interior, is under way, says a message from Isthanbul. The rumour circulating here that the Turkish Government has issued a general order for the 10,000 or more Armenians still in Anatolia to leave the country districts before spring of this year and migrate to the larger 1 Turkish cities, has been denied by j competent Turkish authorities and by leaders of the Armenian community. An apparent cause of the migration ; is the impoverished condition of Ana- I tolia, where three successive summers of drought ruined the crops of Turks and Armenians alike.^ Moslem Turkish refugees from Thrace and the Balkans, to whom the Turkish Government allotted lands in Anatolia, bear witness to the present hard times in the Turkish interior, for many of them have returned to refugee camps in mosque courtyards of Istanbul, and others have gone back to their old homes. This winter 570 Armenians from the Cesarea and Tokalc regions and from villages iu the province of Sivas, such as Zara, Kotchissar, Divrik, Kangoa and Manjinik, have arrived, group bv small group, in this city. The majority are obviously poverty-stricken but show no evidence of ill-treatment during their exodus from Anatolia. Shelter and, where possible, employment, are being procured for them by ! tbe local Armenian community* of ’ about 60,000 persons, many of whom 1 ere well-to-do merchants. The greater stream of Armenian j migration is flowing toward Syria. : During tile last year approximated j 5,000 Armenians left the Turkish interior, especially Malatia, Diarbekir and other eastern regions, for Syria, and it is believed that several thousand more will follow in 1930.