Mr. Speaker. today we mourn the massacre of 1 million Armenians and the deportation of 500.000 other Armenians between 1915 and 1923. Sixtynine years ago. on April 24. 1915. the leaders of the Turkish Government began the systematic extermination of the Armenian people. On that date. over 200 Armenian religious. political and intellectual leaders were arrested in Constantinople and in Armenian centers throughout the Ottoman Empire. These pillars of the Armenian community were then either deported or taken to the interior and murdered. thus leaving the Armenian people leaderless and setting the stage for barbaric genocide. Earlier in that year. the Armenians in the armed forces. who were all ablebodied Armenian males. had been segregated into labor batallions. disarmed. and ultimately worked to death or massacred. In May 1915. the Turks ordered the deportation of all Armenians. The resulting death march. consisting mostly of women. children. and elderly. wound its way across Asia Minor and Turkish Armenia into the Syrian desert. The Turks inflicted countless gruesome atrocities upon the defenseless Armenians.
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deported deportation