Last Updated On: Apr 25 2021 04:19 Gmt+3
The Armenians of the Ottoman Empire experienced calamity of the greatest degree during World War I. Many males, including young men and boys, were executed outright, whilst women, children and the elderly were deported to barren lands in Iraq and Syria.
Those deported were subjected to every manner of misery - kidnapping, rape, torture, murder and death from exposure, starvation and thirst - by every possible adversary - Ottoman gendarmes, Turkish and Kurdish irregulars, tribesmen, and the army.
Those who escaped deportation, primarily women and children, were forced to convert to Islam, as Muslim identity was considered a cornerstone of the new nation-state, Turkey. Principally perpetrated by the Committee of Union and Progress (CUP, İttihad ve Terakki Cemiyeti) elite, who largely controlled the Ottoman government at the time, these events constitute what we now know as the Armenian Genocide.