Diaspora Armenian conductor, composer Vartan Melkonian and his daughter, Veronica-Haiganush will march 1,000 km from the city of Van of Western Armenia to the Lebanese city of Byblos as tribute to the martyrs of the Armenian Genocide.

As reported by “ArmenPress”, the father and his daughter will start the march by the blessing of Cathlicos Aram I of the Great House of Cilicia in February  2015.

“The 1,000 km march from the city of Van of Western Armenia to the “Trchnots Bun” orphanage in the Lebanese city of Byblos is truly a very important initiative. It will remind the world that the genocide that the Ottoman Turks perpetrated against the Armenians a century ago must never happen again in the history of mankind,” the Supreme Patriarch mentioned in his letter addressed to Vartan Melkonian.

The Armenian Genocide also left a trace on the Melkonians. In the 1950s, Vartan was one of the children staying at the “Trchnots Buyn” orphanage, and he spent his adolescence in the slums of Beirut.