Treasure hunters are robbing the Armenian cemetery located in the Turkish village of Stanoz. As ermenihaber.am reports, Turkey’s Agos Armenian Weekly reports that the Stanoz village is just 30 km away from Ankara and used to be mainly populated by the Armenians, who left Cilicia for Stanoz village in the 15^th century.

By the 17^th century, the merchants and industrialists of the village were popular even in Europe. The Armenians of Stanoz would go to the Holy Savior and Forty Children’s Churches, and up to 200 Armenian children received their education at the Lusignan and Ghevondyan Schools. Today, the only things that remain in the formerly Armenian-populated village are ruins and the Armenian cemetery that treasure hunters rob and destroy. As a result, most of the tombstones have been robbed, and one can see pieces of human bones scattered everywhere.

In the 1990s, the Armenian cemetery of Stanoz was declared as a protected area, but the robbery continues even after that. The locals use a part of the cemetery as an open-air area to relax. It is also mentioned that the local self-government authorities have placed metal wires in a part of the cemetery for protection, but those wires have been destroyed. A part of the cemetery has been joined to the area under construction. Representatives of Ankara’s chamber of architecture plan to visit the area and inform the Turkish Ministry of Culture and Tourism about the situation at hand.