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WWI-era mass grave with 20,000 skeletons found in Bitlis
A mass grave has been discovered in the eastern city of Bitlis containing an estimated 20,000 corpses, sparking claims that they are the bodies of Turks killed by Armenian gangs and Cossacks.
The bones in the graveyard found in Mutki belong to children, women and the elderly, as well as soldiers, the Cihan news agency quoted Törehan Serdar, head of the Association of Victims of World War I Massacres by Armenians, as saying. Serdar claimed that in 1915, when the Russian military invaded the city of Bitlis for the first time, Cossacks and local Armenian gangs massacred approximately 20,000 people in the Kavakbaşı village of Mutki.
Serdar said those who carried out the massacre buried the dead in mass graves to conceal the evidence of the violence. He said although research teams have established that skeletons found in the mass grave belong to Turks, work investigation of the site in not yet complete.
Examination of the site has been interrupted by poor weather and hindered by the roughness of the terrain, noted Serdar. He said as soon as the weather conditions improve, teams will resume work. “The violence here will be shown as proof. The Armenians know how to accuse Turkey of genocide with bills, but they either do not know their history or they simply choose to ignore it. Here is proof of who really massacred whom,” added Serdar.
25.01.2008
Today’s Zaman with wires İstanbul
A mass grave has been discovered in the eastern city of Bitlis containing an estimated 20,000 corpses, sparking claims that they are the bodies of Turks killed by Armenian gangs and Cossacks.
The bones in the graveyard found in Mutki belong to children, women and the elderly, as well as soldiers, the Cihan news agency quoted Törehan Serdar, head of the Association of Victims of World War I Massacres by Armenians, as saying. Serdar claimed that in 1915, when the Russian military invaded the city of Bitlis for the first time, Cossacks and local Armenian gangs massacred approximately 20,000 people in the Kavakbaşı village of Mutki.
Serdar said those who carried out the massacre buried the dead in mass graves to conceal the evidence of the violence. He said although research teams have established that skeletons found in the mass grave belong to Turks, work investigation of the site in not yet complete.
Examination of the site has been interrupted by poor weather and hindered by the roughness of the terrain, noted Serdar. He said as soon as the weather conditions improve, teams will resume work. “The violence here will be shown as proof. The Armenians know how to accuse Turkey of genocide with bills, but they either do not know their history or they simply choose to ignore it. Here is proof of who really massacred whom,” added Serdar.
25.01.2008
Today’s Zaman with wires İstanbul
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