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In September 1895, the Armenians in Constantinople arranged a demonstration led by the Hntchak party, which tragically ended in a bloodbath. 182 In the wakes of this event, other large massacres took place, from September until December 1895. 183 Large scale massacres also took place in Trabizond 184, Bayberout, Erzurum 185, Erzinjan, Bitlis 186, Diyarbakir 187, Kharpout, Arabkir, Malatya 188, Sivas, Mardin, Aintab, Marash and Caesarea. The atrocity of these massacres reached its peak in Ourfa, where 3,000 Armenians were murdered during the first week of the new year, of whom the majority were women and children who had taken cover in the city church. They were burned alive in the church. 189

We do not go into the details of these massacres here (see further on regarding the genocide) but content ourselves with the words of Georges Clemenceau: This is, with an ongoing futility, the same history of crime and catastrophe which has been accomplished with the same methods during this period in other places." 190

The total number of victims of the massacres in 1894, 1895 and 1896 has been estimated to around 150 000 people. This is the sum of 100 000-110 000 murdered; 191 plus tens of thousands who lost their lives during the harsh winter in Armenia as their homes had been burned to the ground and they lacked food and heating; and children who became orphans when their mother and father fell victim to the massacres. According to Gladstone: "language is not powerful enough to describe these events, and whatever we can say about this, it will never be an exaggeration."



In addition to this figure are those who were forced to convert to Islam (the alternative was death), the number of whom according to the French ambassador amounted to 40 000. 192

Such a horrifying ordeal worsened the already unbearable situation for the survivors of the Armenian nation. 2 500 societies had been entirely emptied of their populations and those who had survived in many places lost their properties (confiscated by Turks and Kurds). These actions led a group of 500 000 people into total poverty. 193

Finally, a group of 100,000 Armenians left Western Armenia between 1894 and 1897 to search asylum in Transcaucasia 194, the Balkans and the USA.

Added to the massacres in Semvat, 1894-1897, these numbers show that the Ottoman government forcefully reduced the Armenian population in the Armenian provinces by 400 000 people (200,000 in Erzurum, Van and Bitlis alone).

At the start, the Turkish officials, in accordance with habit, denied these massacres completely (and continue to do so to some degree), claiming that the events were nothing more than disturbances 195. Before long, however, the Turks and their defenders were compelled to give in before the indisputable documents which were presented and which confirmed these events. 196 The Turks' next step was to reduce the significance of the catastrophe by claiming that these massacres were merely the government's necessary answer to the general uprising of the Armenians. 197