Deputy Prime Minister Tigran Avinyan said on Wednesday, April 22 that the government will lay 105,000 flowers at the Genocide memorial on behalf of Armenians worldwide on April 24.

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April 24, 1915 is the day when a group of Armenian intellectuals were rounded up and assassinated in Constantinople by the Ottoman government. On April 24, Armenians worldwide will be commemorating the 105th anniversary of the Genocide, which continued until 1923. Some three dozen countries, hundreds of local government bodies and international organizations have so far recognized the killings of 1.5 million Armenians as Genocide. Turkey denies to this day.

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Avinyan’s statement came a day after government chief of staff Eduard Aghajanyan said that the entrance to the memorial in Yerevan will be closed on April 24 for security reasons. Thousands of people from Armenia and abroad visit the memorial each year to pay tribute to the memory of the victims of the Genocide. The tradition will be interrupted this year given the rapidly spreading coronavirus pandemic in the world.

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Avinyan urged people to stay at home and join the government’s program of commemorative events, which includes switching off the lights at 9pm on April 24 when all the city lights in Yerevan and the provincial capitals will be turned off; flashing the lights from their phone cameras through windows and follow the response from Tsitsernakaberd, the hill on which the memorial is situated; sending messages with their names to the numbers 1915 (from Armenia) and 0037433191500 (from abroad), so that all those names will be projected on the walls of the memorial.

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H/T PanArmenian