Norwich bulletin., 1917-07-19
STORIES OF THE WAR
Relief of Work In Baodad.

Correspondence of The Associated Press.) One of the best things that is be- ing done in Bagdad just now is the relief of Armenian women and chil- dren who have survived the massa- creS and are now living in Mussulrr1an families writes the British official Eye Witness with army in Mesopo- tamia. They are being gathered in-
 to hostels financed by the British gov Grnment and their own people are
 looking after them.
 "A visit to one of these institutions and a talk with the refugees there
 furnishes a convincing arraignlnent
 against the Turkish government. The
 inmates are all young, many Of mar Maigeable age. and a great number of
 children under six have already for
 gotten their language and their faith.
 There is a girl of ten from a vil-
 ge near Erzerum. She and her family started on donkeys with few of their belongings, but in three days
 the Kurds had left them nothing and
 they had to walk. The Turks had is- sued q proclamation in all the villages that the Armenians were to be sent away to a colony that was being pre-
 pared for them, and that their pro-
 perty was to be kept under the care of the government" during the war
 and then restored. This was more
 than a year ago.
 The sendarmes were very pleas
 ant to them in their homes. and told
 them that they would be given new
 ney would not be long. The first as
 surence as they guessed, was visi:n-
 ary. In the second, the gendarmes did not lie. For many of them it was all over on the third day. Two or
 three hundred of the men were sep arated from the women and killed, shot or cut down with the sword.
 The same thing happened nearly every day The guards were very haphazard; there was no system. the river; others thrust over preci- pices. Twelve hundred left the two villages near Erzerum: four hundred only reached Ras-el-Ain. The survi vors were all women and children. there was not a man among them nor a male child over nine years old
 "A man in a nearby hostel was the sole survivor of a group of refugees who disappeared between Ras-e Ain and Nishibin. They were taken into the desert and formed up in line. as in a Chinese execution to be dis patched by the sword. There was a shortage of ammunition and the sword was employed for reasons of it occurred to the Arne enian that a bullet would be an easier death. so he broke from the line. Tn the con fusion the gendarmes missed him; he hid in the brush. escaped and made his way to Basdad.
 The main features of all the mae sa cres were much the same. The en- igrants, If they were not killed on the road, were taken to some depot where they were kept a few days. Here | they found large camp where quickly ! the rationing became a difficult ques- i ton. Then notice" came from Con stantinople" that refugees of a certain {! district had been allotted land for cul- ! tivation, and they are started on a | fresh journey. This, they knew, was | probably death sentence, but they | nourished a thin hope.
 For the first halliday they were !, generally safe, murder on a large i scale is deprecated near q town. No | body, for example. saw anyone killed | in Trebizond, but a few dasy after the l Arnenians had left the city their ! bodies came floating down the river. 1 The desert is non conductor. What 1 is done there leaves only a vague fu- 1 nor.
 "The refugees. although unarmed, sometimes turned on their guards. | More than once they made the as i sassins pay dearly. There is a woman | in a Bagdad hostel who was one of a | brave band of two or three hundred 1 Armenian women who held a pass near Urfa. Their men-f folk had all been treacherously killed off earlier. | and they knew that obedience to the