Ras al-Ayn Camps


Ra's al-'Ayn 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".

History

Ras al-Ayn became a major collecting place for deported Armenians from Anatolia. By September 1915 the groups of refugees 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 were 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 had ordered to massacre the deported Armenians. Daurri 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.
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".

Famous deportees