World leaders including French President Francois Hollande and Russian leader Vladimir Putin held a minute's silence in Yerevan on Friday to mark 100 years since the start of the World War I massacres of Armenians.

The ceremony saw Armenia's president Serzh Sarkisian and other leaders lay flowers at a hilltop memorial outside the Armenian capital Yerevan commemorating the deaths of some 1.5 million Armenians at the hands of Ottoman forces between 1915 and 1917.