JINHA

AMED – On the hundredth anniversary of the Armenian genocide, Armenians traveled from around the world to a cave in rural Diyarbakır province to remember the massacre.

Armenians traveled from around the world to come to the commemoration ceremony, held in the village of Yeniköy, in the Çüngüş district of Diyarbakır province. The Du Deng cave wasa site where perpetrators of the genocide piled the corpses up in the cave by the hundreds. Afterwards, when local people heard that the Armenians were tossed in the cave along with their gold, they jumped in after them hoping to gather the gold. Many never came back.

As the group, organized by the Gomidas Institute, Turkey's Human Rights Association and the Diyarbakır municipality, set out for Du Deng cave in the early hours of the morning, they were stopped on the way by gendarmes. As İHD Diyarbakır chair RaciBilici protested that the ID check was "meaningful" on the anniversary of the Armenian genocide, a gendarme captain cut him off as he began to say "genocide," saying: "That situation is that way for you. For us, it's not even allegedly."

Finally, after the crowd reacted to the ID stop, the gendarme let the bus go on its way to Du Deng.There, Diyarbakır Armenian GafurTürkay spoke, with some difficulty.

"All over the region, all over Turkey, there was a genocide. There were wrongs everywhere, but this place is the place where Armenians were brought and thrown away," he said. Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) MP NurselAydoğan also spoke, calling for an apology for the genocide.

As the crowd began to leave carnations at the entrance to the cave, some among the crowd began to cry. The ceremony ended with attendees singing dirges at the site.

(fk/cm)