Raymond H. Kévorkian
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Earth, fire, water
Or how to make the Armenian corpses disappear

This article seeks to draw up an inventory of the various methods employed by the Young Turk regime to clear away the bodies of massacred Armenians, which were obstructing transport routes and posing a threat to public health. Particular attention will be paid to the role of the Interior Ministry, which regularly issued instructions to this effect to local authorities. The first section will examine the use of rivers, in particular the Tigris and Euphrates, during the first phase of the genocide (May-September 1915) for the rapid disposal of bodies of deportees who had suffered a violent death. This process will be considered in relation both to the upper reaches of these rivers, in the mountainous regions of Armenia, and downstream, in the deserts of Syria and Mesopotamia, where witnesses reported seeing bodies floating by for months. The second section will focus on the running of the concentration camps set up in Syria and Mesopotamia, in which prisoners died of "natural causes" through exhaustion, starvation or epidemics. The procedures implemented by the camp authorities regarding the daily collection of bodies from the previous 24 hours and the construction of mass graves will be analysed.

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Destruction and human remains

Disposal and concealment in genocide and mass violence

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