Thousands of people marched on Thursday in Los Angeles to pay respect to memory of the Armenian Genocide victims, ABC reported.

An annual event is organzied by Unified Young Armenians, and is the largest commemoration of the genocide outside of Armenia, the organizers say. Participants come from all across California, Arizona and Nevada.

As reported by ABC, many protesters were disappointed with Barack Obama's statement as he fell short of using the word genocide to describe mass killings of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire.