Armenians commemorate 1915 genocide

Armenians on Wednesday marked the 98th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide, a series of atrocities that left more than 1 million people killed.

On April 24, 1915, the Ottoman Empire government arrested several hundred Armenian intellectuals overnight. Most of them were executed summarily and others were sent to exile, according to Armenian historians.

That was followed by mass deportations of Armenians from the eastern regions of Turkey, and an estimated 1 million to 1.5 million Armenians were killed from 1915 to 1923, Armenian historians say.

Each year on April 24, thousands of Armenians from all walks of life and all corners of the world visit the Genocide Memorial Tsitsernakaberd ("Swallow's Fortress" in Armenian) in Yerevan to lay flowers in memory of the victims of the genocide.

Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan and many high-ranking officials visited the memorial to pay their respects.

"I come here every year and I think sooner or later Turkey will recognize what they did to us," said 11-year old Ani.

"I do believe that Turkey will admit the fact of the Armenian Genocide and hopefully that will be useful in preventing such crimes in the future," said Nvard, a teacher from a local school in Yerevan.

More than 20 countries have officially recognized the fact of the Armenian Genocide. In some countries like Switzerland, for instance, the denial of the Armenian Genocide or the Meds Yeghern, as Armenians call it, is in fact illegal.

However, the Turkish government has been consistently denying that the tragedy was a planned genocide, and argues that the number of people killed was much smaller.

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