Page:Martyred Armenia - El-Ghusein.djvu/51

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Martyred Armenia
49

Armenian Death Statistics.—At the end of August, 1915, I was visited in prison by one of my Diarbekir colleagues, who was an intimate friend of one of those charged with the conduct of the Armenian massacres. We spoke of the Armenian question, and he told me that, in Diarbekir alone, 570,000 had been destroyed, these being people from other Vilayets as well as those belonging to Diarbekir itself.

If to this we add those killed in the following months, amounting to about 50,000; and those in the Vilayets of Bitlis and Van and the province of Moush, approximately 230,000; and those who perished in Erzeroum, Kharpout, Sivas, Stamboul, Trebizond, Adana, Broussa, Urfa, Zeitoun, and Aintab—estimated at upwards of 350,000—we arrive at a total of Armenians killed, or dead from disease, hunger, or thirst, of 1,200,000.

There remain 300,000 Armenians in the Vilayet of Aleppo, in Syria, and Deir-el-Zûr (those deported thither), and in America and Egypt and elsewhere; and 400,000 in Roumelian territory, held by the Balkan States, thus making a grand total of 1,900,000.

The above is what I was able to learn as to the statistics of the slaughtered Armenians, and I would quote an extract from El-Mokattam, dealing with this subject:

“The Basle correspondent of the Temps states that, according to official reports received from Aleppo in the beginning of 1916, there were 492,000 deported Armenians in the districts of Mosul, Diarbekir, Aleppo, Damascus, and Deir-el-