By Baghdadhope
Source: Coptreal
Even the small Armenian community of Basra (Iraq) commemorated yesterday, April 24, the beginning of the second campaign of genocide initiated by the Ottoman government with the arrests, in the night between 23 and 24 April 1915, of the elite members of the Armenian community of Constantinople.
In the Armenian Apostolic Church of the Virgin Mary, the priest, Father Torkom Torkomian, reminded the faithful the innocent victims of that dark period.
Interviewed by Radio Sawa, Fr. Torkomian spoke also of the Armenian community of Basra: 120 families for a total of about 600 people. Only one church, the one of the Virgin Mary, one of the oldest in Iraq dating back to 1736, after the two others churches were closed, and a community heavily affected by recent events that had as a result the flight from the city. A flight that the priest hopes can be reversed by the coming back of the Armenian people as, these are his words, the situation is now "slightly improved."
