25.03.2015


This photo was made in 1916 in Horan region of Syria. This is a unique scene of tortured and hungry Armenian refugee women grouped around the corpse of a donkey. The author of a photo is Hasan Amjan who was appointed by Djemal Pasha as an inspector of the Armenian deportees. He was personally in charge of resettling the Armenian deportees in Syria and Lebanon.




The photo proves a critical situation of the Armenian deportees. To satisfy their hunger and thirst people were forced to perform unimaginable: even some examples of hannibalizm were reported. When Hasan Amjan approached them with a photo camera to depict that scene, no one paid attention, casted a glance or looked at his direction.

Later Hasan Ajman handed this photo to the extraordinary military court (headed by Nemrut Mustafa Pasha) investigating mass annihilation of the Armenians as a proof of a crime committed against the Armenian population of the Ottoman Empire.

“The Armenians were eating grass, roots, horse carrion, until the hunger eats up last sparks and power, spreading ashes of corpses in the country”.

Armin Theophil Wegner
A German officer in the Ottoman Army 1915-1916
An eyewitness of the Armenian Genocide

The source of the photo: Collection of the Armenian National Archive
From “100 Photographic Stories of the Armenian Genocide” book