I rise today to lend my voice to the memory of those 1.5 million Armenians massacred in one of this centurys cruelest atrocities. On this day in 1915. Turkey began a program of rounding up Armenian religious. intellectual. and political leaders and deporting them to Anatolia where they were systematically executed. In a single night. the leadership of Armenia was destroyed and the flame of the Armenian culture extinguished. In the months following. over 250.000 Armenian soldiers serving in the Ottoman army were disarmed and placed In forced labor battalions. Those that did not succumb to the ravages of famine. disease. and exhaustion were executed by the Ottoman army. The Armenian civilians remaining. the women. seniors. and children left behind. were deported from the cities and towns. The men and older boys were separated from the groups. never again to be seen. and those remaining were forced on death marches into the desert of Syria. In all. over 1.5 million Armenians were massacred during the 7 years of genocide and more than 500.000 exiled from their homeland in the Ottoman Empire.
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deported deporting