(6) Egin, Arabkir, Keban, Harpout, Malatia—same fate.
(7) Karahissar, Sou-Shehr, Zara, Tchavik—all murdered.
(8) Erzindjan, Kamakh—part murdered, the rest thrown into the Euphrates.
Bands of Kurds from Dersim are at work in Malatia. All Armenians have been killed, according to my informant. I believe that all the men have been killed, but that the women and children have been distributed among the Turkish families of the interior. Not one Armenian is to be seen.
I wanted very much to go to M. and Y., so as to see myself what was happening, but the Kaimakam had his eye on me. I do not know that one can believe everything one is told, and it seems rather curious that none of my friends from the interior have reported these things to me.
[124]. Name given in the original—Mr. BZ.
91. X. (?): NARRATIVE OF A FOREIGN RESIDENT OF GERMAN NATIONALITY[[125]]; COMMUNICATED BY THE AMERICAN COMMITTEE FOR ARMENIAN AND SYRIAN RELIEF.
I was called to a house one day where I saw a sheet which originated from the prison, and which was being sent to the wash. This sheet was covered with blood, and running in long streams. I was also shown clothes which were drenched and exceedingly dirty. It was a puzzle to me what they could possibly have done to the prisoners, but I got to the bottom of the matter by the help of two very reliable persons who witnessed part of it themselves.
The prisoner is put in a room (just as was done in the time of the Romans), and gendarmes standing in twos at both sides and two at the end of the room administer bastinadoes, each in their turn, as long as they have enough force in them. In Roman times forty strokes were administered at the very most; in this place, however, 200, 300, 500, even 800 strokes are administered. The foot swells up and then bursts open, owing to the number of the blows, and thus the blood spurts out. The prisoner is then carried back into prison and brought to bed by the rest of the prisoners—this explains the bloody sheet. The prisoners who become unconscious after these blows are revived by having cold water thrown on their heads, and that accounts for the wet and dirty clothes. On the next day, or, more exactly, during the night, as all ill-treatments are carried on at night in ——, as well as in ——, the whole bastinadoing is repeated again, in spite of the swollen feet and the wounds. I was then in ——, but in that prison there were also no less than thirty prisoners, who all had their feet in such a state that they began to burn, and had to be amputated, or had actually already been taken off. Equally revolting tortures have been inflicted in ——, and also by the cruel Mutessarif in ——. A young man was beaten to death within the space of five minutes.