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TURKEY : THE BLIGHT OF ASIA

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STORY OF WALTER M. GEDDES

Page 3

    "An Armenian physician whom I know and who is treating hundreds of these suffering Armenians who have become ill through exposure on the trip, hunger and thirst, told me that there are hundreds dying daily in Aleppo from starvation and the result of the brutal treatment and exposure that they have undergone on the journey from their native places."

    "Many of these suffering Armenians refused alms, saying that the little money so obtained will only prolong their sufferings and they prefer to die. From Aleppo, those who are able to pay are sent by train to Damascus, those who have no money are sent over the road to the interior toward Deir-El-Zor."

    "In Damascus I found conditions practically the same as in Aleppo; and here hundreds are dying every day. From Damascus, they are sent still farther south into the Hauran, where their fate is unknown. Several Turks, whom I interviewed, told me that the motive of this exile was to exterminate the race, and in no instance did I see, any Moslem giving alms to Armenians, it being considered a criminal offence for any one to aid them."

    "I remained in Damascus and Aleppo about a month, leaving for Smyrna on the twenty-sixth of October. All along the road I met thousands of these unfortunate exiles still coming into Aleppo. The sights I witnessed on this trip were more pitiful than those I had seen on my trip to Aleppo. There seems to be no end to the caravan which moves over the mountain ridge from Bozanti south; throughout the day from sunrise to sunset, the road as far as one can see is crowded with these exiles. Just outside of Tarsus I saw a dead woman lying by the roadside and farther on passed two more dead women, one of whom was being carried by two gendarmes away from the roadside to be buried. Her legs and arms were so emaciated that the bones were nearly through her flesh and her face was swollen and purple from exposure. Farther along, I saw two gendarmes carrying a dead child between them away from the road where they had dug a grave. Many of these soldiers and gendarmes who follow the caravan have spades and as soon as an Armenian dies they take the corpse away from the roadside and bury it. The mornings were cold and many were dying from exposure. There are very few young men in these caravans, the majority are women and children, accompanied by a few old men over fifty years of age."

    "At Bairainoglou, I talked with a woman who was demented from the sufferings she had undergone. She told me that her husband and father had both been killed before her eyes and that she had been forced for three days to walk without rest. She had with her two little children and all had been without bread for a day. I gave her some money, which she told me would be taken, in all probability, from her before the day was over. Turks and Kurds meet these caravans as they pass through the country and sell them food at exorbitant prices. I saw a small boy about seven years old riding on a donkey with his baby brother in his arms. They were all that was left of his family."

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