Armenians remember genocide a century later

YUKARI BAKRACLI, Turkey — On April 24, Armenians worldwide commemorated 100 years since almost 1.5 million of their ancestors died in the last days of the Ottoman Empire, in massacres, by starvation or during forced death marches into the Syrian desert.

The date marks a century of fierce disagreement between Armenia and Turkey over what happened that spring. Armenians and their supporters — including many historians, Pope Francis and the European Parliament — say the murders constitute a systemic elimination of their population from eastern Anatolia in present-day Turkey. But Turkey rejects the genocide label, saying hundreds of thousands of both Turks and Armenians died in battles between Ottoman and Russian forces in World War I. (RNS)