Hamidian massacres ( , ) , also referred to as the Armenian Massacres of 1894 – 1896 and Great Massacres , were massacres of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire that took place in the mid-1890s . It was estimated casualties ranged from 80,000 to 300,000 , resulting in 50,000 orphaned children . The massacres are named after Sultan Abdul Hamid II , who , in his efforts to maintain the imperial domain of the collapsing Ottoman Empire , reasserted Pan-Islamism as a state ideology . Although the massacres were aimed mainly at the Armenians , they turned into indiscriminate anti-Christian pogroms in some cases , such as the Diyarbekir massacre , where , at least according to one contemporary source , up to 25,000 Assyrians were also killed
Diyarbekir massacre
Massacres of Diyarbakır (1895)
Hamidian massacres