Armenia Commemorates Victims Of Ottoman-Era Killings Amid Coronavirus Lockdown

Armenia turned off street lights and church bells range across the country late April 23 in an altered commemoration to the victims of the World War I-era massacre of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire.

A torch-lit procession traditionally held each year in Yerevan on the eve of April 24 was canceled due to the coronavirus pandemic and access was closed to the Tsitsernakaberd Memorial Complex, where normally throngs of people would pay their respects to the victims of the tragedy.

As a beam of blue light radiated into sky from the hilltop genocide memorial that dominates the capital skyline, residents turned off lights in their homes. Many lit candles or mobile telephone flashlights at windows.

The 105th anniversary “of the Armenian Genocide is commemorated in accordance with a protocol forced on us by the pandemic,” President Armen Sarkisian said in a statement.

“We remember our victims all the time and everywhere, no matter where in the world we are. We pray for them in our souls and minds, name by name,” he said.

On April 24, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian and the head of the Armenian Church, Catholicos Garegin II, will lay flowers at the memorial.

Last month, Armenia declared a state of emergency and imposed a nationwide lockdown to slow the spread of infections. The government has reported 1,401 coronavirus cases and 24 deaths.

During and immediately after World War I, as many as 1.5 million Armenians were killed or deported from Anatolia, in what Armenians call “The Great Crime.” Many historians, Armenia, and more than 30 countries consider the killings genocide.

As the successor state to the Ottoman Empire, Turkey objects to the use of the word genocide and describes the killings as “The Events of 1915.”

Ankara recognizes about 500,000 Armenians died as a result of civil strife, disease, and starvation rather than a planned Ottoman government effort to annihilate Armenians. Turkey also points out that hundreds of thousands of Muslims died in Anatolia at the time due to combat, starvation, cold, and disease.

Based on reporting by AFP and Armenpress.