Operated by Ottoman government Inmates Armenians | Operational 1910s Killed 80,000 | |
Location Ra's al-'Ayn, Ottoman Empire | ||
Ra's al-'Ayn camps (also Ras ul-Ain camps) were desert death camps near Ra's al-'Ayn city, where many Armenians were deported and slaughtered during the Armenian Genocide. The site became "synonymous with Armenian suffering".
Contents
"While we were marching the Turkish soldiers with drawn swords suddenly made their way through the crowd, and, like beasts let loose in a flock of sheep, killed and wounded many. The rest still dragged on under the influence of the bloody swords until Ras-ul-Ain. Desert was reached. This place was especially noted for the carrying of their butchery, for all that were sent to these parts were sent there to die.", wrote an eyewitness. "Armenian Tells Of Death Pilgrimage", New York Times, July 27, 1919
History
Ras al-Ayn was one of the major collecting places of deported Christians. By September 1915 the groups of refugees (usually made up of women and children) began to arrive after the exhausting journey. In April 1916 the German consul reported "again massacre at Ras ul Ain": "300 to 500 deportees are taken out of the concentration camp each day and butchered at a distance of 10 km. from Ras ul Ain" In summer of 1916 new rounds of massacres improvised by the Turkish government in the areas of Deir ez-Zor, Rakka and Ras ul-Ain. In 1916, over 80000 of Armenians were slaughtered in Ras al-Ayn. According to reports, in one day alone 300-400 women arrived to the camps completely naked and were plundered by local Chechens and gendarmerie: "All the bodies, without exception, were entirely naked and the wounds that had been inflicted showed that the victims had been killed, after having been subjected to unspeakable brutalities". "There was nothing wrong in robbing and killing deportees', as the local kaimakam (governor) had ordered to massacre the deported Armenians. Daurri (Diirri) Bey, son of Turkish Defterdar Djemal Bey of Aleppo, was the official High Executioner of the Armenians at Ras-el-Ain. "This brute, after robbing them of their jewelry chose the youngest girls of good families and kept them for a harem.
"While we were marching the Turkish soldiers with drawn swords suddenly made their way through the crowd, and, like beasts let loose in a flock of sheep, killed and wounded many. The rest still dragged on under the influence of the bloody swords until Ras-ul-Ain. Desert was reached. This place was especially noted for the carrying of their butchery, for all that were sent to these parts were sent there to die.", wrote an eyewitness. "Armenian Tells Of Death Pilgrimage", New York Times, July 27, 1919
Several times, entire camps in Ras ul-Ayn were liquidated as a persecution against typhoid epidemics. According to US Ambassador Henry Morgenthau, Sr., all the way to Ras-ul-Ain the existence of wretched Armenian travellers "was one prolonged horror".