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Start of Genocide
The starting date of the genocide is conventionally held to be April 24, 1915, the day when Ottoman authorities arrested about 250 Armenian intellectuals and community leaders in Constantinople. After that, the Ottoman military took Armenians from their homes and forced them to march for hundreds of miles, depriving them of food and water, to the desert of what is now Syria. Massacres were indiscriminate of age or gender, with rape and other sexual abuse commonplace. -
Period: to
Armenian Genocide
the years it lasted. -
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Rescued Orphans
Many orphans have been picked out and carried by the Turks and Kurds, Arabs during these years. The Armenian orphans were adopted by them and converted to Islam. The orphans in some orphanages, such as Antura orphanage, also were converted to Islam. During the next years by the efforts of several organizations and persons thousands of them were rescued. -
Children and woman targeted to starve
A significant portion of Armenian children succumbed to severe hardships during the Armenian Genocide. In the order of Talaat, the Minister of the Interior of the Ottoman Empire was told “All the Armenians in the country who are Ottoman subjects, from five years of age upwards, are to be taken out of the towns and slaughtered”. -
Woman and Child
The Armenians were marched out to the Syrian town of Deir ez-Zor and the surrounding desert. A good deal of evidence suggests that the Ottoman government did not provide any facilities or supplies to sustain the Armenians during their deportation, nor when they arrived. -
Orphans chosen to get killed
Danish missionary Sister Hansina Marcher visited one of these orphanages in Kharpert and surprised: She found about 700 Armenian children; all of them were good clothed and fed. When she visited the orphanage again several days later, there were only 13 out of the 700 children left – the rest had disappeared. They had been taken to a lake and drowned, where ten thousands of Armenians drowned during the summer. -
Orphans sent to Ophanges
The policy of Turkish Government to annihilate the Armenian children became more evident after the deportation, when a lot of orphans were gathered. Turkish Government opened some orphanages for these children. -
Doctors poisoning Children
The method of poisoning of children also was implemented by Turkish physicians during these years. Survivors testify how in Agn, Khapert province some 500 Armenian orphans collected from all parts of that province were poisoned through the arrangement of the local pharmacist and physician. -
Children Massacred
Some of children were burnt alive, others were poisoned or drowned, died from lack of food, or succumbed to diseases. As a consequence of the Armenian Genocide hundred thousands of Armenian children were left orphans, many were converted to Islam. -
Drowninhg of Children
An equally large number of Armenian children were destroyed through mass drownings at the Mesopotamian lower ends of the Euphrates River, especially in the area of Deir Zor. According to the testimony of an Armenian survivor, Mustafa Sidki, Deir Zor's police chief, on October 24, 1916 ordered some 2000 Armenian orphans carried to the banks of the Euphrates, hands and feet bound. They usually were thrown in the rivers. -
Burning of Woman and Children
The most extensive operations of mass burning of children took place in Bitlis province. Swedish missionary Alma Johansson, who was running the German orphanage in Mush, reported that many Armenian women and children were burnt alive as the orphans of their orphanage. The mass burning of children took place also in Der Zor, where the orphans gathered into a large orphanage building, doused with petrol and torched to death. -
Choosing of certain Orphans
The Talaat ordered to collect and only keep thoe orphans who cannot remember the tortures to which their parents have been subjected. The others must be send away with caravans. -
Troubles that Orphans Faced
The children, who had survived the Armenian Genocide, had to overcome a lot of difficulties, to face a lot of trials to remain faithful to their religion and nationality.
