The Samsun deportations were a series of death marches orchestrated by the Turkish National Movement as part of its extermination of the Greek community of Samsun, a city in northern Turkey (then still formally the Ottoman Empire), and its environs. It was accompanied by looting, the burning of settlements, rape, and massacres. As a result, the Greek population of the city and those who had previously found refuge there—a total of c. 24,500 men, women and children—were forcibly deported from the city to the interior of Anatolia in 1921–1922. The atrocities were reported by both American Near East Relief missionaries and naval officers on destroyers that visited the region. The deportations were part of the Turkish National Movement's genocidal policies against the Pontic Greek community of the Black Sea region of Turkey which from 1914 to 1923 reached a final death toll of c. 353,000. It was also part of the last stage of the Greek genocide, which was launched after the landing of Mustafa Kemal in Samsun, in May 1919. Background During 1915–1917 the deportations in the Pontus had involved slaughter, rape, brutality, and robbery that reached far beyond any justification, military or otherwise. Only a small number of the victims might have been involved in any anti-Turkish resistance activity. Moreover, notorious bands of cetes (organized brigands), especially those led by Topal Osman had been engaged in continuous shooting, plunder and rape of defenseless Greek villagers in the Pontus region. As a result of this campaign of genocide the Christian population of Samsun, the most important port on the south coast of the Black Sea, was dramatically affected: the Armenian community that originally numbered 5,000 members was reduced to only 1,000 inhabitants, while the 15,000 ethnic Greeks were reduced to 10,000 at the end of World War I. On May 19, 1919, Mustafa Kemal (later Atatürk) landed in Samsun, far away from the war zone of the Greco-Turkish War in western Anatolia. The arrival of the former together with members of the former Young Turks movement, many of whom were wanted for crimes committed during World War I, marked the final phase of the Greek genocide and the extermination campaign of the local Greek communities continued the following years. Campaign of extermination During late spring of 1921, the activity of armed bands led by Topal Osman included looting, burning of Greek settlements around Samsun and massacre of the civilian