Deir ez-Zor Camps
| Deir ez-Zor Camps | |
|---|---|
| Concentration camp | |
Armenian refugees collected near the body of a dead horse at Deir ez-Zor
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 Location of Deir ez-Zor in contemporary Syria
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| Coordinates | 35°20′00″N 40°9′00″E / 35.33333°N 40.15000°ECoordinates: 35°20′00″N 40°9′00″E / 35.33333°N 40.15000°E |
| Location | Deir ez-Zor, Ottoman Empire |
| Operational | 1910s |
| Inmates | Armenians |
| Killed | 150,000 |
The Deir ez-Zor camps were concentration camps in the heart of the Syrian desert where many thousands of Armenian refugees were forced into death marches during the Armenian Genocide. The United States vice-consul in Aleppo, Jesse B. Jackson, estimated that Armenian refugees, as far east as Deir ez-Zor and south of Damascus, numbered 150,000, all of whom were virtually destitute.
Those Armenians who survived during the genocide in 1915-1916 were driven onward in two directions – either toward Damascus, or along the Euphrates to Deir ez-Zor. During the early period of massacres, 30,000 Armenians were encamped in various camps outside the town of Deir ez-Zor. They were under the protection of the Arab governor Ali Suad Bey until the Ottoman authorities decided to replace him with Zeki Bey, who was known for his cruelty and barbarity. When the refugees, including women and children, reached Deir ez-Zor, they cooked grass, ate dead birds, and although there was a cave near the Deir ez-Zor for prisoners to store until they starved, no "camp" seems ever to have been planned for the Armenians.
According to Minority Rights Group,
"Those who survived the long journey south were herded into huge open-air concentration camps, the grimmest of which was Deir-ez-Zor... where they were starved and killed by sadistic guards. A small number escaped through the secret protection of friendly Arabs from villages in Northern Syria".
According to Christopher J. Walker, "'Deportation' was just a euphemism for mass murder. No provision was made for their journey or exile, and unless they could bribe their guards, they were forbidden in almost all cases food and water." Those who survived landed up between Jerablus and Deir ez-Zor, "a vast and horrific open-air concentration camp".
In the village of Margadeh (88 km from Deir ez-Zor), there is an Armenian chapel dedicated to those massacred there during the genocide, that "houses some of the bones of the dead". Lebanese and Syrians make pilgrimages to this memorial organized by the Armenian Apostolic Church of Aleppo.
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Wikipedia