Marqadeh is a dusty roadside settlement on the banks of the river Khabur. We hopped off the bus in the middle of nowhere, not really knowing what we were looking for. Well, mass graves, actually, but we didn't know where. Wandering up the hill in the direction of what turned out to be a shrine to those Armenians killed in Marqadeh. Around 50,000 are reported to have been killed on what once were the banks of the river. As it turns out, the river has changed course since 1915 so when we went down to the river we were met by a bemused village chief of police (Nader) who was curious to know why we were there - what with the dearth of tourists 'n all…

Anyway, he rang people in Damascus over a cup of tea in his wooden hut to check that we were "clean" and then drove us on the back of his motorcycle back to the shrine, behind which we might be able to find bones. Splashing through the courtyard of the shrine - being washed in the sun by the old Armenian custodian - we looked in the church with glass cabinets (again) of Armenians' bones (pictured). Then I signed the register, mostly in Armenian barring "Jenny and Tom"'s best wishes on behalf of the American people.

It was possible, behind the church, and on the banks of where the river must have once been, to find the odd bone fragment or two (pictured) but seeing as the hill also acted as a slipstream for spring floods (I'm guessing) the surface was just made up of slick. Nader wasn't really interested in the Armenians that Felix eventually found in the hillside. He wanted to discuss Syria and our relationship to it as foreigners. He talked about countries at war, the Mehlis report, terrorists ("anyone who acts against humanity"), as well as that it was sometimes necessary to conduct "cleanup operations - amaliyaat al-tandthiif" for the sake of peace and stability - at which point he mentioned Hama, of course. More about the ubiquitous Hama later, though.

We waited for some time at the roadside for a minibus going northwards, and eventually ended up in Hassake (then another motorcycle-taxi ride to the bus station) for the connecting bus to Qamishli.