… / Geschiedenis / Berichtgeving in de internationale pers / Massacre of Christians
The Argus, 19 juli 1916
Bron: National Library of Australia
Massacre of Christians
Shocking Deeds by Turks
Armenian Students Bound and Shot
A special correspondent of the Paris “Journal,” who is in Armenia, sends details of horrible massacres at Kharput.
The Turks arrested Armenian intellectuals, had them bound, and then shot them in groups of fifty.
The last batch revolted on the evening before martyrdom, and set fire to the prison, preferring being burnt to death to being massacred. The Turkish authorities therefore summoned the pupils of the Central School and the French Armenian colleges, and assembled them in the square at night, where they were massacred. The dead and wounded were flung together into an immense ditch, which they had previously been compelled to dig.
[Kharput is 60 miles north-west by north of Diarbekir. The “College of Armenia,” founded here by American missionaries, is the principal establishment of public instruction in Armenia and Turkish Kurdistan.]
Syrians Left to Starve.
80,000 Deaths in 10 Weeks
A Mussulman, writing in the “Journal de Geneve,” protests against the cruelties practised on the Christians in Lebanon by the Young Turks. He states that 80,000 have died of starvation since the beginning of May, and that thousands of persons of the highest Syrian society have been deported.
[The inhabitants of the district of Lebanon, estimated at 220,000, are a hardy race of people of Syrian descent, who keep large herds of sheep and goats. The predominating element is the (Christian) Maronites; next come the Druses and heretical Moslems. After the bloody quarrels of the Druses and Maronites in 1860 the district of Lebanon was separated from the Turkish pashalik of Syria, and put under a Christian governor. European powers constituting themselves the “guardians” of the new province.]
