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European Witness
Page 4
"Many of these people go without bread for days, and they become emaciated beyond description. I saw several fall from starvation, and only at certain places along this road is there water. Many die of thirst. Some of the Armenians, who can afford it, hire carriages. These are paid for in advance and the prices charged are exorbitant."
"At many places like Bozanti, for example, where there is an encampment of Turkish soldiers, there is not enough bread for these Armenians and only two hours from Bozanti I met a woman who was crying for bread. She told me that she had been in Bozanti for two days and was unable to obtain anything to eat, except what travelers like myself had given her. Many of the beasts of burden belonging to the Armenians die of starvation. It is not an unusual sight to see an Armenian removing a pack from the dead animal and putting it on his own shoulders. Many Armenians told me that although they were allowed to rest at night, they get no sleep because of the pangs of hunger and cold."
"These people walk throughout the whole day at a shuffling gait and for hours do not speak to one another. At one place where I stopped along the road for lunch I was surrounded by a crowd of little children, all crying for bread. Many of these little tots are obliged to walk barefooted along the road and many of them carry little packs on their backs. They are all emaciated, their clothes are in rags and their hair in a filthy condition. The filth has given rise to millions of flies and I saw several babies’ faces and eyes covered with these insects, the mothers being too exhausted to brush them away."
"Diseases broke out in several places along the road, and in Aleppo several cases of typhus fever among the Armenians were reported when I left. Many families have been separated, the men being sent in one direction and the women and children in another. I saw one woman, who was with child, lying in the middle of the road crying, and over her stood a gendarme threatening her if she did not get up and walk. Many children are born along the way and most of these die as their mothers have no nourishment for them."
"None of these people have any idea where they are going or why they are being exiled. They go day after day along the road with the hope that they may somewhere reach a place where they may be allowed to rest. I saw several old men carrying on their backs the tools of their trade, probably with the hope that they may some day settle down somewhere. The road over the Taurus Mountains in places is most difficult and often times crude conveyances drawn by buffalos, oxen and milk-cows are unable to make the grade and are abandoned and overturned by the gendarmes into the ravine below. The animals are turned loose. I saw several carts, piled high with baggage on the top of which were many Armenians, break down and throw their occupants in the road. One of the drivers, who was a Turk, and who had collected an advance from the people whom he was driving, considered it a huge joke when one woman broke her leg from such a fall."
"There seems to be no cessation of the stream of these Armenians pouring down from the North, Angora and the region around the Black Sea. Their condition grows worse every day. The sights that I saw on my return trip were worse than those on my trip going, and now that the cold weather and winter rains are setting in, deaths are more numerous. Roads in some places are almost impassable."
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