Armenian ability to adapt to their circumstances and survive was greater than the perpetrators expected. A loosely organized, Armenian-led resistance network based in Aleppo succeeded in helping many deportees, saving Armenian lives. At the beginning of 1916 some 500,000 deportees were alive. After hearing from German politicians that they expected surviving Armenians to be allowed to return home after the war, Talat Pasha ordered a second wave of massacres in early 1916. More than 200,000 Armenians were killed between March and October 1916, often in remote areas near Deir ez-Zor and on parts of the Khabur valley where their bodies would not create a public health hazard. The massacres killed most of the Armenians who had survived the camp system. Intentional, state-sponsored killing of Armenians mostly ceased by the end of January 1917, although sporadic massacres and starvation continued to claim lives.