(AINA) -- "We have made a clean sweep of the Armenians and Assyrians of Azerbaijan" -- Those were the words of Djevdet Bey, the governor of Van Province in Ottoman Turkey, who on April 24, 1915 lead 20,000 Turkish soldiers and 10,000 Kurdish irregulars in the opening act of the genocide of Assyrians, Armenians and Greeks.

Related: The Assyrian Genocide

Between 1915 and 1918 750,000 Assyrians (75%), 1,000,000 Greeks and 1,500,000 Armenians were killed by Ottoman Turks and Kurds in a genocide that aimed at and nearly succeeded in destroying the Christian communities in the Ottoman Empire.

2026 marks the 111th anniversary of the genocide.