On Friday, the 2nd July, they deported part of the Armenians of G. Their destination appeared to be Ourfa via Diyarbekir.
On Saturday, the 3rd July, they deported all Armenians domiciled in the houses belonging to CL. in A. Street, in the town of G. Again their destination was supposed to be Ourfa, but via Malatia in this case.
We ourselves were deported on the 4th July in the direction of Ourfa via Diyarbekir.
The Town Crier proclaimed that on the following Tuesday those from B. and C. Streets in the Town of H. would be deported, on Wednesday the Armenians from AQ., on Thursday those from AR., and so on.
CJ. and two hundred other Armenians were deported ten days before we were, that is on Wednesday, the 23rd June; we do not know their destination. Their party started at midnight. Some of them dropped cards asking for money, and at AT. money was conveyed to them. But the following Monday, the 28th June, when the Armenian women of AT. went to the river, they saw some Turkish women washing blood-stained clothes. The Armenian women took the clothes from the Turkish women and brought them to the Governor at G. The Governor on hearing this went to AT. and found that the Bishop and the 200 Armenians had been killed.
Up to the day we started, the Syrians had not yet been deported, and the women who had no husbands were also allowed to remain, but later on CK. Aghassi said that not a single Armenian would be left. After the Armenians were deported, the Government locked their houses and sealed them up. The men of CL.’s factory were also deported with their families. In C. some of the tradesmen were not deported, as, for example, CM. Agha the son of CN. Agha, the baker CO. and his family, and the two brothers, CP. and CQ. Aghas, the sons of Q. Agha. CQ. Agha became a Moslem, while the father was deported with the Bishop.
All the people of C. started the same day. I think we were about 600 families. We had with us all our cattle and all our property. The first night we reached AU. and slept that night in the fields. The next day we passed many corpses heaped together under bridges and on the road; their blood had collected in pools. Probably these were the Armenians that were killed with the Bishop, for the corpses were all those of men. We spent the night near AV. in a valley, and that night we had to drink water polluted with blood. We promised our guards money if they took us a better road and gave us clean water. The third day they again made us travel past corpses, and on Wednesday we reached A.
The same morning the gendarmes that were accompanying us, W. Effendi and the other Turkish effendis that were with him, put down their chairs in front of our han, and sat down. Then they turned to us and told us that they had received telegrams from H., and that instead of going to Ourfa some of us would go to Yermag and the rest to Severeg, so that our journey would thus be shortened. “Only it is necessary,” they added, “that your men should come and register themselves at the han at A., and state which way they would like to go. Thank the Sultan, who has made your journey shorter.” After these words they all clapped their hands and forced us to do the same. Our men, being simple-minded, were deceived, and they even left their hats and coats to go to the han in question. None of those that went returned. Then the rest of those above 16 years of age and all the old men were arrested and taken to the same place. After this the gendarmes beat the women and forced them to continue their journey. The women said: “We will not go unless our men go with us. You may kill us if you want to.” But the Turkish officials told us that our men would follow us in a little while, and forced the women and children to march on, so they marched on crying and wailing. After half-an-hour’s journey they made us sit in the fields, and all the Turkish officers returned to A. except one. The same day some Arab women (that is, Armenian gipsies) brought us bread, in spite of the officers’ efforts to prevent them, and when they heard that we were crying because our men had been killed, they told us that they had seen them all passing by roped together. Again we went on under the hot burning sun, still crying. The sixth day they made us stop in a Kurdish village, where we spent the night. Next morning we saw that all the gendarmes that had returned to A. had now rejoined the convoy.
Then Gendarme W. Effendi and the other Turks with him beat us and forced us under threat of death to give them all our money and ornaments. They said that, if we did not give them up, they would violate us and exile us to different places. We were afraid, and gave them everything we had. Then they gave us back from five piastres (1Od.) to one medjidia (3s. 2d.) each, at the same time stating that our money and everything else would be returned to us at Diyarbekir, and that they had only taken our jewellery and money for safety.
The ninth day, they took us to the top of a mountain, and the same Effendi and the other gendarmes searched us all over in a shameful manner; they took all the silk-stuffs and everything else of value in our clothes and bedding. Half-an-hour later we reached a Kurdish village. There I met a Turkish soldier from Malatia, called CR., whom I knew. He pitied me, and told me that it was all over with us. “I would advise you,” he said, “to leave your company and look after yourself.”