Thousands of Armenians marched to commemorate the 1915-1918 mass killings of their people at the hands of Ottoman Turkey.
People gathered in central Republic Square in Yerevan, Armenia’s capital city.
Attendees carried the flags of states that have recognized the mass killings as genocide.
They want other countries, like Turkey, to do likewise.
Muslim Turkey accepts that many Christian Armenians died in clashes with Ottoman soldiers beginning in 1915.
At that time, Armenia was part of the empire ruled from Istanbul.
But Turkey still denies that genocide took place.
The premeditated and systematic nature of Turkey’s campaign to exterminate the Armenian people lead many to consider this one of the first modern genocides.
Approximately 1.5 of 2 million Armenians living in the Ottoman Empire were killed.
Others were forcibly removed from the country.
It is still illegal in Turkey to talk about what happened to Armenians during this period.
