Commemoration day of the Armenian Genocide victims

On April 24 the world spread Armenians honor the memory of the innocent victims who were killed in their own fatherland as a result of the genocidal policy of the Turkish authorities.

There were an estimated two million Armenians living in the Ottoman Empire on the eve of WWI. Approximately one and a half million Armenians perished between 1915 and 1923. Another half million found shelter abroad, the official website of the Armenian Genocide Museum says.

On April 24, 1915 hundreds Armenian Intellectuals: poets, musicians, publicists, editors, lawyers, doctors, deputies, were arrested in Constantinople under warrants issued by the Turkish authorities. They were all sent into exile and were horrifically slaughtered. The annihilation of the Armenian Intellectuals was the part of a systematic, fiendish plan to exterminate the Armenian people in their homeland. It was the first state-planned Genocide of the 20th century.

Since the 1920s April 24th is the day Armenians commemorate the victims of Armenian Genocide, the most tragic element of Armenian history.

The atrocities committed against the Armenian people of the Ottoman Empire during WWI is defined as the Armenian Genocide.

Those massacres were perpetrated throughout different regions of the Ottoman Empire by the Young Turkish Government which was in power at the time.

The first international reaction to the violence resulted in a joint statement by France, Russia and Great Britain, in May 1915, where the Turkish atrocities directed against the Armenian people was defined as «new crime against humanity and civilization» agreeing that the Turkish government must be punished for committing such crimes.

A special committee was formed in Constantinople, in March 1919, by a group of Ottoman Armenian intellectuals who survived the Armenian Genocide. The main goal of this committee was the organization of commemoration ceremonies dedicated to the 4th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide.

Bishop Mesrop Naroian held a liturgy for the victims of the Armenian Genocide from April 15th to the 25th, 1919 in St. Trinity church of Bera district of Constantinople. The Armenian patriarch of Constantinople, Zaven Eghiaian, gave a sermon. On this proclaimed «day of mourning, » all Armenian national colleges and shops in Constantinople were closed.

Since the first commemoration of the Armenian Genocide victims in 1921 in Istanbul, April 24 officially was adopted as «Day of Mourning and Commemoration».

Turkey has traditionally rejected the accusations of the mass extermination of around 1.5 million Armenians in the early 20th century and reacts extremely painfully to the criticism from the West in this regard. The fact of the Armenian Genocide is recognized by many states. The first state to recognize the Armenian Genocide was Uruguay in 1965, whose example was followed by Russia, France, Italy, Netherlands, Germany, Belgium, Poland, Lithuania, Slovakia, Sweden, Switzerland, Greece, Cyprus, Lebanon, Canada, Chile, Argentina, and 42 U.S. states. Genocide of the Armenians is recognized also by the Vatican, the European Parliament and the World Council of Churches.