On Thursday evening, Armenia turned off lights in public places to commemorate the victims of the genocide in 1915 in a ceremony different from previous years, due to the outbreak of the new coronavirus and the quarantine measures imposed in this country located in the Caucasus.
Within the framework of these ceremonies, the Armenian Prime Minister, Nikol Pashinyan, and the Patriarch of the Armenian Church, Karekin II, laid wreaths before the Genocide Monument in Yerevan.
The torches march, which is usually organized on April 23 of each year in the capital, Yerevan, was canceled this year, and roads leading to the genocide monument, which overlooks the city, were closed.
Armenian President Armen Sarkissian said that the commemoration of the 105th anniversary of this tragedy "will be revived with a ceremony imposed on us by the epidemic."
"We remember the victims all the time and everywhere, and it does not matter where we are in the world."
Instead of the usual ceremony, the public lights were turned off and the church bells rang in the country. Yerevan was plunged into darkness as its residents turned off their house lights, too.
Many lit candles or their mobile phones and placed them on the windowsill.
Armenia, which has had the number of newly infected Coronavirus 1523 and the number of deaths 24, declared a state of emergency on its entire territory, and imposed public quarantine to prevent the spread of the disease.
The Armenians say that the forces of the Ottoman Empire killed 1.5 million people during the First World War.
Turkey rejects the term "genocide", while about thirty countries and a number of historians admit that what happened was genocide.
President Sarkissian stressed on Thursday that "recognition of the genocide by Turkey and the elimination of its consequences is a security issue for Armenia, the Armenian nation and the region."
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