In the village of Böveren, near Albistan, all the Armenian inhabitants, 82 in number, with the exception of a boy twelve years old, who jumped into the water and escaped, were killed.
In the neighbourhood of Zeitoun the inhabitants of a village infested by the smallpox were deported. The patients suffering from smallpox, including those whose eyesight had been destroyed by the illness, were lodged in hans (i.e. inns) at Marash, in which deported persons from other districts were lodged already.
At Marash I saw a convoy, consisting of about 200 persons, among whom were several blind. A mother, of the age of about 60, led her daughter, who was lame from birth; in this manner they started on their journey on foot. After an hour’s march a man collapsed near the Erkeness bridge; he was robbed and killed. Four days afterwards we still saw his corpse lying in a ditch.
Last night I called on an acquaintance; he had given hospitality to a mother and her child who had been deported from Sivas—the two survivors of a family of 26 persons who had been deported from Sivas three months before and had reached Marash in the last few days.
In Aintab I saw a written order of the Governor of the town, prohibiting the purchase on the part of the Mohammedan population of any objects belonging to the deported Armenians. The same Governor caused preparations to be made for a raid on the deported persons. Two convoys were robbed of everything, down to the shirts of the people belonging to them.
About 2,800 persons deported from Gürün were attacked and robbed at Airan-Pounar (12 hours to the north-east of Marash) by eight brigands, who wore uniforms, partly officer’s uniform and partly private’s. At Kisyl Gedjid, 1½ hours short of Airan-Pounar, the eight brigands joined the gendarmes escorting the convoy and had a long conversation with them. At Airan-Pounar the gendarmes ordered the people to divide into two parties; the few men formed one party, and the women the other party. The women were stripped naked and robbed of everything; four women and two girls were dragged away in the night and violated; five of them returned on the following morning. In a defile of the Engissek-Dagh the whole convoy was completely plundered by Turks and Kurds. In this assault 200 persons were killed; 70 severely wounded persons had to be left behind, and more than 50 more were taken along with the convoy. I met the convoy, then consisting of about 2,500 persons, at Karaböyük. The people were in an indescribable state of misery; one hour short of Karaböyük two men were lying on the road, one with two and the other with seven knife-wounds; further on there were two exhausted women; still further four women, including a girl of 13, with a two days’ old baby in her arms, wrapped in rags. A man of about 60, who was lying in the road with a deep wound (inflicted by a dagger), as long as a finger and two fingers wide, told me that he had left Gürün with 13 animals. All the animals and all his goods were taken away from him at Airan-Pounar, and he had dragged himself away on foot, until he reached a place about an hour short of Karaböyük, where he fell down exhausted.
These people had all been in easy circumstances; the value of the goods, the animals and the money of which they were robbed, is estimated at T£8,000. Those who were exhausted were left lying on the road; corpses can be seen lying on both sides of it. Among the 2,500 persons of whom this convoy was composed I saw no males, with the exception of about 30–40. All males over the age of 15 were taken away in the sight of the women, and were probably killed. These Armenians were intentionally transported by circuitous routes and over dangerous paths. By the direct road to Marash they would have arrived in four days, and they have been on the road for over a month. They had to travel without animals, without beds, without food; once in every day they received a thin slice of bread, and then not enough to satisfy their hunger. Four hundred of them (Protestants) have in the meantime arrived at Aleppo; out of these two or three die every day.
The raid at Ainar-Pounar was carried out with the connivance of the Kaimakam at Albistan, who made them pay him T£200, and promised the people that he would see that they reached Aintab safely. The Kaimakam at Gürün made them pay him T£1,020, and gave the same assurances. I saw a man who, together with others, handed this sum to the Kaimakam in the club room at Gürün. In the neighbourhood of Aintab several women belonging to this convoy were violated in the night by civilian inhabitants of Aintab. On the occasion of the raid at Airan-Pounar men were tied to trees and burnt alive. While the Armenians at Gürün were actually leaving the town, the Mollahs called the faithful to prayer from the roofs of the Christian Churches. An eye-witness told me about a dispute between two brothers relating to the booty at Airan-Pounar; one of them said: “For these four loads I have killed forty women.”
At Marash a Mohammedan of the name of Hadji, whom I have known for years, told me the following incident: “At Nissibin, I and all the mule-drivers were locked up in a han; several young women belonging to Furnus were violated during the night by the gendarmes escorting the convoy and by civilians.”
At Aintab, at the office of the Commissioner of Police, a Mohammedan Agha said in my presence to an Armenian: “In such and such places letters have been found. What are your relations with this man? I have often told you to become a Mohammedan: if you had listened to me, you would have escaped all the disagreeable things to which your nation is exposed.”