Facts of the 1915 Armenian Massacre Called Genocide

Jakarta, CNN Indonesia –

United States President Joe Biden made a historic statement after mentioning the massacre Armenia in the Ottoman Empire in 1915 as genocide, aka the systematic massacre of one ethnic group or group of ethnic groups.

Biden’s statement was considered a major victory for Armenia, after previously several countries also agreed to the genocide, such as Uruguay, France, Germany, Canada and Russia.

However, the Turkish foreign ministry then summoned US Ambassador David Satterfield to express his displeasure, because Biden’s statement was deemed to have caused “a wound in the relationship that is difficult to repair”.

With this polemic, it is necessary to know some facts about the massacres that have resulted in hundreds of thousands and even millions of lives. Quoting Reuters, here are the facts you need to know about the massacre of Armenia in April 1915:

1. Died in the desert

It is said that in 1894-1896 tens of thousands of Armenians who converted to Christianity and lived in Eastern Anatolia – now Eastern Turkey – were massacred by the Ottoman Empire, mainly ethnic Kurds.

Meanwhile, in 1,896, thousands more were also reported to have died in Constantinople – now Istanbul – after the Armenian army tried to seize Ottoman-controlled territory.

Then during World War I, the Ottoman Empire fought Russian troops in eastern Anatolia, so that conditions made many Armenians form partisan groups to help Russian soldiers attacking ottomans.

However, the peak on April 24, 1915, the Ottoman Empire captured one by one the Armenians and killed them in ethnic cleansing.

Then in May 1915, the Ottoman commanders began the mass deportations of Armenians from eastern Anatolia.

Thousands of people driven from their territories went south to Syria and Mesopotamia.

At that time, live Armenian witnesses said about 1.5 million people died in the massacre or died of starvation and exhaustion in the desert.

2. Turkish objections

The Turkish Republic, declared in Ankara in 1923 after the fall of the Ottoman empire, has often denied any “systematic attempt” to exterminate the Armenians during the 1915 massacre.

Brand said that thousands of Turks and Armenians died in inter-ethnic wars when the Ottoman empire began to collapse.

The Republic of Turkey also cited millions of lives as a result of the war in the Russian invasion during World War I.