This camp, too, had its Armenian orphanage, founded in October 1918 and administered by the Egypt-based Association for the Protection of Armenian Orphans (Vorpakhnam). One thousand two hundred children, most of them from Van and Persian Azerbaijan, were living in tents in the camp. Bishop Mushegh, formerly the prelate of Adana, played a big part in creating this orphanage. The Armenians of Baghdad had organized a Deportee Relief Agency (Hay darakrelots marmin) which took charge of the Armenians in the Baquba camp. The British, however, were determined to repatriate the camp’s Armenians, Assyrians, and Nestorians as soon as possible. The plan to repatriate the Armenian refugees in Mosul and Baquba even led the government of the Republic of Armenia to dispatch a representative, Arsen Gidur, to the region; he arrived in Baghdad in August 1919.93 By early 1920, all the details of the evacuation plan had been worked out. Three thousand deportees were sent to Mosul to help build the last section of the Baghdad railway.94 In fall 1920, in the wake of political turmoil in Iraq during which Arab insurgents attacked the Baquba camp,95 the British authorities decided to close it down earlier than planned. All the Armenian refugees were transferred to Nahr el Omar, on the right bank of the Shatt al Arab, near Basra. Here the British put up two adjoining bivouacs: a small one, in which eight hundred twenty-five orphans were lodged (525 boys and 300 girls), and a big one for the remaining thirteen thousand refugees.96 The American missionary ... Read all
Humanitarian Work in Iraq
The Nahr el Omar Armenian refugee camp
(Coll. Bibl. Nubar/Paris).
Armenian orphans in the Nahr el Omar camp
(Coll. Bibl. Nubar/Paris).
Repatriation of Armenian refugees from the Nahr el Omar camp (Coll. Bibl. Nubar/Paris).