[175]. “More than a thousand.”—Earlier statement.
[176]. “The Protestant pastor and a doctor were also killed.”—Earlier statement.
[177]. “Later, another convoy of exiles came up, and took this party of forty women on with them.”—Earlier statement.
138. AC.: LETTERS FROM AN ARMENIAN INHABITANT[[178]], DESCRIBING THE DEPORTATION OF ARMENIANS FROM CILICIA; COMMUNICATED BY THE AMERICAN COMMITTEE FOR ARMENIAN AND SYRIAN RELIEF.
Letter dated 6/19th April, 1915.
Every day two or three hundred people from Zeitoun are transferred to BM., under severe guard, and, after a short halt at night, are deported in unknown directions. The hotels and the two Armenian schools are full of these deported families from Zeitoun, Alabash and Furnus. The Government has decided to evacuate by force all the other Armenian regions. It is impossible to describe the misery which is resulting. Old men, invalids, and children four or five years old go in masses, barefooted.
Letter dated 17/30th May, 1915.
Since the first days of April, convoys have been coming from Zeitoun and the neighbourhood and passing southward towards the steppes of Mesopotamia. Reckoning only those that have crossed our city, the number of the deported rises to 6,700 persons. Furnus, Geben, Alabash, and the whole region of Zeitoun have been evacuated. Bosniak mouhadjirs replace the Armenians thus exiled. The Turks are in a perfect delirium. It is impossible to describe the horrors suffered by the deported Armenians. Violation, conversion and the rape of women and girls are ordinary and daily facts. The Armenian population of Zeitoun has been annihilated, one or two villages excepted. We are informed that 150 Armenians from Dört Yöl and 1,350 from Hassan-Beyli have been deported to Aleppo.
[178]. Name withheld.