Aleppo and Ourfa are the assemblage-places for the convoys of exiles. There were about 5,000 of them in Aleppo during June and July, while during the whole period from April to July many more than 50,000 must have passed through the city. The girls were abducted almost without exception by the soldiers and their Arab hangers-on. One father, on the verge of despair, besought me to take with me at least his fifteen-year-old daughter, as he could no longer protect her from the persecutions inflicted upon her. The children left behind by the Armenians on their journey are past counting.
Women whose pains came upon them on the way had to continue their journey without respite. A woman bore twins in the neighbourhood of Aintab; next morning she had to go on again. She very soon had to leave the children under a bush, and a little while after she collapsed herself. Another, whose pains came upon her during the march, was compelled to go on at once and fell down dead almost immediately. There were several more incidents of the same kind between Marash and Aleppo[[27]].
The villagers of Shar were permitted to carry all their household effects with them. On the road they were suddenly told: “An order has come for us to leave the high road and travel across the mountains.” Everything—waggons, oxen and belongings—had to be left behind on the road, and then they went on over the mountains on foot. This year the heat has been exceptionally severe, and many women and children naturally succumbed to it even in these early stages of their journey.
There are about 30,000 exiles of whom we have no news at all, as they have arrived neither at Aleppo nor at Ourfa.>
[27]. “We have just picked up fifteen babies. Three are already dead. They were terribly thin and ailing when we found them. Ah! If we could only write all that we see.”—Extract from a letter dated Marash, 4th June, 1915, published in “Sonnenaufgang,” September, 1915.
13. STATEMENT MADE BY A FOREIGN RESIDENT AT CONSTANTINOPLE TO A SWISS GENTLEMAN AT GENEVA; COMMUNICATED BY THE LATTER.
When I left Turkey early in March (1916), the Armenian situation was as follows:—
In general deportations had ceased, but local interference with Armenians continued. Quite often Armenians who had remained in the villages or cities between the Taurus Mountains and Constantinople have been sent from one locality to another within the province, or even to localities in other provinces.
Arrests of Armenians in the Capital continue with considerable frequency. Those arrested were usually sent to some interior province, often to be killed or to be left to die from ill-treatment or lack of food.