Turkish Peoples Misery -nyt19141205b
TURKISH PEOPLES MISERY
Missionaries Tell of Terrible Conditions-
Raid by Kurds
December 5, 1914
The Armenian Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions has issued a bulletin relative to conditions in Turkey, which contains excerpts from letters recently received in this country from missionaries in Turkey. Some of them read:
A. N. Andru of Mardin. --Everything is in confusion. Trade is utterly paralyzed, travel is impossible, transportation is stopped, schools are stripped of their teachers, money has ceased to circulate, drafts cannot be cashed, grain remains unthrashed and unwinnowed for lack of animals and men to do the work; the labor market is closed and hunger in the midst of plenty is already looking in at the door of thousands of homes, hence two, three, four and in some cases, five of the breadwinners have been summoned to the ranks.
E. C. Woodly of Marash.--Churches cannot pay pastors' salaries and we cannot help because of our shortage of funds. From one of our best outstation churches seventy-two out of ninety-four male members have been called out as soldiers.
E. C. Partridge of Sivas.--Everything that is movable is being taken from shops and in some cases from houses. Thousands of villagers have been sleeping hungry in the streets of Sivas for three weeks, while their wheat is wasting in the fields.
Mary D. Uline of Bitlis.--If ever relief was needed it is now. People will starve to death and die of exposure. Hundreds and hundreds of wild Arabs and Kurds from the south have been going through the city on their horses. They helped themselves to whatever they wanted from merchants and travelers.
A hard copy of this article or hundreds of others from the time of the Armenian Genocide can be found in The Armenian Genocide: News Accounts From The American Press: 1915-1922