Today is the #ArmenianGenocide Remembrance day. Beginning on this day in 1915 and continuing through the early 1920's the Ottoman government carried out the systematic mass murder of approximately 1.5 million Armenians.

The word 'genocide' was coined in response to this atrocity. It began with the arrest and deportation of about 250 Armenian leaders and intellectuals, who were eventually killed.

In May a law was passed giving the Ottoman government and military the ability to deport anyone they "sensed" as being a threat to national security. This led to the mass confiscation of Armenian property and the beginning of mass killings of Armenians.

Deportees were force marched into the Syrian desert and deprived of the necessary supplies and resources to survive. They were also transported in cattle cars and held in concentration camps. Armenians were killed by mass burnings, drowning, morphine overdose and toxic gas.

In 1915 the Armenian population was estimated to be approximately 1.7 million. By 1917 it was less than 300,000. The scale of loss is hard to imagine.
We will never forget.
And it must never happen again.