Torchlight march marks mass deaths of Armenians

YEREVAN, Armenia (AP) — About 10,000 people bearing torches have marched through Armenia’s capital to commemorate the estimated 1.5 million Armenians killed in Ottoman Turkey more than a century ago. The march from a central square to a sprawling memorial complex on Sunday night began with activists burning the flags of Turkey and Azerbaijan. Tensions between Armenia and Azerbaijan have spiraled in recent months since the blockage of the road leading to the ethnic Aremenian region of Nagorno-Karabakh within Azerbaijan. Historians estimate that in the last days of the Ottoman Empire up to 1.5 million Armenians were killed by Ottoman Turks in what is widely regarded as the first genocide of the 20th century. Armenians have long pushed for the deaths to be recognized as genocide.