On April 24, 1915, the government rounded up approximately 250 Armenian intellectuals and leaders, eventually killing most. In the months that followed, civil and military officials forced the mass deportation of Armenian villages. Many families were marched into the Syrian desert where they starved to death or died from lack of water. The purge was accompanied by massacres that historians have said were carried out by irregular forces or locals.

Estimates of the number of Armenians who perished vary widely, with historians offering a range of about 700,000 to 1.2 million. The U.S. government has said about 1.5 million Armenians either died or were deported. Refugees scattered around the world, with Armenian communities springing up in France, Russia, South America, the Middle East and the United States.

Source: The long march to Biden recognizing the Armenian genocide – Los Angeles Times