In the interior of the Ottoman Empire. where the bulk of the Armenian population lived. the government then arrested and killed village leaders. Meanwhile. most ablebodied Armenian men. who had been conscripted into the Ottoman army. were separated into labor battalions and subsequently murdered. Next. in various provinces. gendarmes and the army massacred Armenian villagers outright. while in other provinces. the remaining Armenian population of women. children and the elderly were forcibly deported over the mountains and into the scorching deserts of Syria. without food and water. Many of the female deportees were raped and killed en route. while other deportees died of starvation and dehydration. By the end of 1915 the centuriesold Armenian civilization of eastem Anatolia no longer existed. U.S. diplomats who were stationed in Anatolia at the time were some of the main eyewitnesses and chroniclers of that horrific EXTENSIONS OF REMARKS.
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deportees deported