The
Hamidian massacres (, ), also referred to as the
Armenian Massacres of 1894–1896 and
Great Massacres, refer to massacres of
Armenians of the
Ottoman Empire in the mid-1890s, with estimates of the dead ranging 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 reinforce the territorial integrity of the embattled 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 in
Diyarbekir Vilayet where some 25,000
Assyrians were killed (see also
Assyrian genocide).