Northern Ireland man Paul Manook, 64, who believes his grandfather was killed and buried in an Armenian mass grave, has called on the British and Irish governments to recognize the deaths as genocide, Coleraine Times reported.

Manook said his grandfather, Manook Dishchekenian, was lined up alongside other men in a village in modern-day eastern Turkey by Ottoman Turkish soldiers a century ago. He was never seen again.

He said the fate for men left behind was grim.

“I have a strong feeling that they must have killed them and buried them in mass graves,” he said.

He noted that his father was then aged six.

“My grandmother realized immediately, she just took my dad and four aunts and they escaped the village. My father was a survivor of the genocide,” he added.

Edward Horgan, a former UN soldier from Ireland and peace activist, said a group of politicians from the Dail in Dublin was being created to lobby on the issue.

And Paul Manook said: “Because of the geopolitics of the region the UK does not want to touch this. Ireland is a small country, probably they will follow the UK because they are a small country and there are quite a lot of links together.”