Americus times-recorder. [volume] (Americus, Ga.) 1891-current, 1917-07-24
ARMENIANS BEING
GIVEN ATTENTION
IN CAPTURED CITY

BAGDAD, July 24.-One or the pest
things that is being done in Bagdad
just now is the relief of Armenian wo-
men and children who have survived
the massacres and are now living in
Mussulman families" writes the Brit
ish official eyewitness with the army
in Mesopotamia. They are being
gathered into hotels financed by the
British government and their own peo-
pie are looking after them.
"a visit to one of these institutions
ard talk with the refugees there fur"
nishes convincing arraignment
against the Turkish government The
inmates are all young, many of mar
riageable age, and great number OF
children under six have already for
gotten their language and their faith
There is a girl of ten from a vii
lage near Erzcrum. She and her fam
lily started on donkeys with a few OF
their belongings, but in three days the
Kurds had left them nothing, and
they had to walk The Turks has is
sued a proclamation in all the vollages
that the Armenians were to be sent
away to a colony that was being pre-
pared for them, and that their proper
t. was to be kept under the care OF
the government during the war and
then restored. This was more than
g year ago.
The gendarmes were very pleasant
t) them in their homes, and told them
that they would be given new land to
cultivate and that their journey would
not be long The first assurance, as
they guessed. was visionary. In the
second, the gendarmes did not lie.
For any of them it was all over on
the third day. Two or three hundred
Oh the men were separated from the
women and killed, shot or cut down
with the sword.
same thing happened nearly
every day. The guards were very hap
hazard: there was no system. Some OF
the women were pushed into the river;
others thrust over precipices. Twelve
hundred left two villages near Err
crum; four hundred only reached Ras-
ei-Ain. The survivors were all women
and children, there was not man
among them nor male child over nine
years old.
"A man in a nearby hotel was the
sole survivor of a group of refugees
who disappeared between Ras-el-Ain
and Nisibin They were taken into the
desert and formed in line, as in a Chi
nese execution, to be dispatched by the
sword. There was shortage of am
munition and the sword was employ
ed for reasons of economy While
waiting for his turn, it occurred to the
Armenian that bullet would be an
easier death, so he broke from the line.
In the confusion the gendarmes missed
him: he hid in the brush, escaped
and made his way to Bagdad.
THE main features of all the massa-
cres were UGH the same. The emf
grants. if they were not killed on the
road. were taken to some spot where
they were kept few days. Here they
found a large camp where quickly the
rstioning became a difficult question
Then notice came from CONSTANT
nople' that refugees of a certain dis
trict had been allotted land for cult
walton, and they are started on
fresh tourney. This, they knew, was
a death sentence, but they nourished a
thin hope
For the first half day they were gen
orally safe, as under on large scale
is deprecated near a town. Nobody,
for example, say anyone killed in
Trebizond, but a few days after the Ar
menians had left the city their bodies
come floating down the river. The des'
ert is a non-condUctor Where is done
there leaves only vague rumor.
The refugees, although unarmed
sometimes turned on their guards
More than once they made the assassins
pay dearly There is woman IN
Bagdad hotel who was one of a brave
band of two or three hundred Armen-
ian women who held pass near Urfa'
Their menfolk had all been treacher-
ously killed off earlier, and they knew
that obedience to the proclamation OF
exile was as fatal as resistance. They
held the pass with their rifles for
nearly week. and the Turks had to
bring up artillery to break their re-
sistance. Some fifty of them escaped
The woman who is now in Bagdad was
rescued by Turk of the better school