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European Witness
Page 2
"At Intily there was an encampment of about ten thousand and at Kadma a large encampment of one hundred and fifty thousand. At this place, adjacent to their encampment, were Turkish troops who exacted "backshish" from them before they would let them go on the road to Aleppo. Many who bad no money had had to stay in this camp since their arrival there about two months before. I spoke with several Armenians here and they told me the same story of brutal treatment and robbery at the hands of the gendarmes in charge, as I had beard all along the road. They had to go at least half a mile for water from this encampment, and the condition of the camp was filthy."
"From Kadma on to Aleppo I witnessed the worst sights of the whole trip. Here the people began to play out in the intense heat and no water, and I passed several who were prostrate, actually dying of thirst. One woman whom I assisted was in a deplorable condition and unconscious from thirst and exhaustion, and farther on I saw two young girls who had become so exhausted that they had fallen on the road and lay with their already swollen faces exposed to the sun."
"The road for a great distance was being repaired and covered with cracked stones; on one side of the road was a footpath, but many of the Armenians were so dazed from fatigue and exposure that they did not see this footpath and were walking— many barefooted—on the cracked stones, their feet, as a result, bleeding."
"The destination of all these Armenians is Aleppo. Here they are kept crowded in all available vacant houses, khans, Armenian churches, courtyards and open lots. Their condition in Aleppo is beyond description. I personally visited several of the places where they were kept and found them starving and dying by the hundreds every day."
"In one vacant house, which I visited, I saw women and children and men all in the same room lying on the floor so close together that it was impossible to walk between them. Here they had been for months, those who had survived, and the condition of the floor was filthy."
"The British Consulate was filled with these exiles, and from this place the dead were removed almost every hour. Coffin-makers throughout the city were working late into the night, making rough boxes for the dead whose relatives or friends could afford to give them decent burial."
"Most of the dead were simply thrown into two-wheeled carts, which made daily rounds to all the places where the Armenians were concentrated. These carts were open at first but afterward covers were made for them."
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