In general, Armenians were denied food and water during and after their forced march to the Syrian desert; as a result, many died of starvation, exhaustion, or disease, especially dysentery, typhus, and pneumonia. In some cases local officials gave Armenians some food, and in others they were able to obtain food and water in exchange for bribes. Aid organizations were oficially barred from providing food to the deportees, although some circumvented these prohibitions. Survivors testified that some Armenians refused aid as they believed it would only prolong their suffering. By October 1915, some 870,000 deportees had reached Syria and Upper Mesopotamia. Most were held in one camp for a few weeks, then transferred to another one, and so forth until there were very few survivors left. This strategy physically weakened the Armenians spread disease, so much that some camps were shut down in late 1915 due to the threat of disease spreading to the Ottoman military. Women in the camps faced rapes either from guards of from Bedouins who were allowed to raid the camps at night, or subjected to forced marriages. Childless Turks, Arabs, and Jews would come to the camp to buy Armenian children from their parents; thousands of children were sold in this manner.