Windsor Star (Ontario, Canada)
April 25, 2005 Monday
ARMENIANS MARK 90TH ANNIVERSARY OF KILLINGS
YEREVAN, Armenia – Hundreds of thousands of Armenians on Sunday
marked the 90th anniversary of the mass killings of Armenians in the
Ottoman Empire, vowing to press their case to have the killings
recognized by Turkey and the world as genocide.
Waving flags and carrying flowers, people streamed through the
Armenian capital and marched up to a massive hilltop granite memorial
to hear speeches and prayers. Weeping mourners filed into the
circular block memorial, laying carnations on a flat surface
surrounding a burning flame. A choir in black sang hymns as the crowd
filed past, some carrying umbrellas against the sun.
The country observed a minute of silence at 7 p.m., local time, and
Yerevan residents were to place candles on window sills in memory of
the victims.
Ottoman authorities began rounding up intellectuals, diplomats and
other influential Armenians in Istanbul on April 24, 1915, as
violence and unrest grew, particularly in the eastern parts of the
country.
Armenia says up to 1.5 million Armenians ultimately died or were
killed over several years as part of a genocidal campaign to force
them out of eastern Turkey. Turkey acknowledges that large numbers of
Armenians died, but says the overall figure is inflated and that the
deaths occurred in the civil unrest during the collapse of the
Ottoman Empire.