Every year, on 24 April, tens of thousands of Armenian pilgrims from all over the world visited the Deir ez-Zor complex to commemorate the genocide victims, with the presence of their religious leaders.

Deir ez-Zor was designated as the final destination point of the Armenian refugees who were driven out from their lands into a long march within the Syrian desert.

The complex consisted of a circular glass display of genocide victims' remains, out of which a white-marble tower was grown, flanked by khachkars (cross-stones).

It consisted of a main entrance, through which one went up to the courtyard with stairs that symbolize the horrible catastrophes and disasters that the Armenian nation was subjected to, but without surrendering to pains, they continued to live proudly and with self-esteem.

On the right side of the courtyard there was the Wall of Friendship which was decorated with different Arabesque and Armenian-style inscriptions as a kind of symbolic expression of the close ties between these two nations.

Around the base of the column were the remnants of victims of the genocide, bones that were dug from the Syrian desert, placed to act as a witness of the death marches.

[2][3] However, Shahan Sarkisian, Prelate of Aleppo, said that the identity of the perpetrators "is not verified", and pointed out that, unlike other examples of demolitions by Islamic State, there was no attempt to disseminate footage of the destruction.

"We view this atrocity, committed in the run-up to the Armenian Genocide centennial and on the 23rd anniversary of Armenia's independence, as an act of barbarism”, said Aram I.