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 mothers were stolen or had been killed by the soldiers.

With this party we went seven hours from the city and were halted there to wait for larger parties of exiles from Sivas and Erzindjan, which were to meet at that point on the way to Diyarbekir.

Both these parties had to pass through Divrig Gorge, which was near by. The exiles from Erzindjan never reached us. They were met at the gorge by the Kasab Tabouri, the butcher regiment, and all were killed. There were four thousand in the party. Just after this massacre was finished the exiles from Sivas came into the gorge from the other side.

The soldiers of the Kasab Tabouri were tired from their exertions in killing the 4,000 exiles from Erzindjan such a short time before, so they made sport out of the reception of those from Sivas, who numbered more than 11,000 men, women and children.

Part of the regiment stood in line around the bend of the gorge until the leaders of the Armenians came into view. Panic struck the exiles at once, and they turned to flee, despite their guards. But they found a portion of the regiment, which had been concealed, deploying behind them and cutting off their escape from the trap.

As the regiment closed in, thousands of the women, with their babies and children in their arms, scrambled up the cliffs on either side of the narrow pass, helped by their men folk, who remained on the road