Thus the Arab administration headed by Faysal did much to facilitate the task of finding and rescuing Armenian women and children who were being held against their will. The governors of Aleppo and Damascus had received firm orders to do all in their power to aid the groups charged with this mission. The Syrian government dragged its feet, however, when it came to letting the freed Armenian women leave with the children born of their marriages with Muslims, a circumstance that inevitably thrust these women into tragic situations. Many ran away from the women’s shelter in order to rejoin their abandoned children. The case of Arpuni of Smyrna is typical. Kidnapped by an Arab during the deportations, she bore him a son. Her family succeeded in locating her after the war. Her brother went to great lengths to have her freed and returned to her lawful husband ... Read all
Damascus: Assembling and Repatriating the Deportees
Residents of the AGBU refugee home in Damascus in 1919 (Coll. Bibl. Nubar/Paris).
Aleppo, the first group of deportees to volunteer for repatriation to Cilicia (Coll. Bibl. Nubar/Paris).