Sayfo, The Syriac Genocide

Sayfo, the Syriac Genocide

This section discusses the Syriac people's collective sacrifices during Sayfo and the many massacres prior to Sayfo that date back almost 2000 years in their ancestral homeland in Southeastern Turkey which was part of the Ottoman Empire at that time. On the eve of World War I, the Syriac population was living in six eastern Ottoman provinces, Bitlis, Van, Kharput (Ma'murat al-Aziz), Diyarbakir, Erzerum, and Sivas. During Sayfo, the Syriac genocide, about 300,000 Christian Syriacs, Chaldeans, and Assyrians, were killed, kidnapped, raped, sold, or forced to convert to Islam. Their properties were stolen or destroyed, and they were deported and forced to leave their ancestral homeland in Turkey. This number is in addition to 2 million Christian Armenians and Greeks who witnessed the same fate. 

These events that started in 1894, the Hamidian Massacres, and ended in 1924 with the last caravan leaving from Edessa, destroyed hundreds of churches and monasteries and wiped out the religious and cultural Syriac heritage from the ancestral homeland. Gradually, the names of the martyrs and the story of the events that happened in many Syriac towns and villages will be added. Eventually, we plan to build a database contianing all these events.

Sayfo Syriac Martyrs

The Events of 1714 Attacks

A wave of violence occurred in 1714 in Tur-'Abdin, where the Kurdish emir Shams ad-Din perpetrated a massacre against the Syriac Christian inhabitants of the area.

The Events of 1829 Attacks

This is one of the earliest recorded conflict that occurred in 1829, when Muhammad Pasha, the Emir of Rawanduz, allied with the Emir of the Bakhtiyye tribe, Sayf ad-Din, to launch an assault on the towns of Beth Zabday (Azakh) and Esfes, resulting in approximately 300 fatalities, and abduction of women and children. This campaign of violence occurred against a background of regional instability, as the Greek population attained independence in the west and the Russian Empire advanced into the northeastern provinces of the Ottoman Empire during the war of 1828 to 1829.

The Events of Badir Khan Massacres 1842-1846

The Events of 1855 Attacks

In the year 1855, a major military campaign and a series of atrocities occurred in the predominantly Syriac region of Tur-'Abdin. These attacks were led by the Kurdish warlord Ezdan Sir who was the emir of Jezire-ibn-Omar, known as Cizre in Turkish and was a rival for Kurdish leadership following the earlier removal of Badr Khan. During this campaign, Ezdan Sir was allied with Massur Beg, and together they directed their forces toward Syriac Christian settlements.

The atrocities in these attacks involved the savage killing and enslavement of the Syriac population. Invading Kurdish tribesmen destroyed houses and other structures, and rendered large numbers of Syriac population homeless. Economic destruction was a primary feature of this campaign, as perpetrators burned both green and dry crops throughout the fields of Tur-'Abdin. During these attacks, kidnapping of women and children and the widespread rape and confiscation of property occurd during this incursion. The Syriac inhabitants attempted to defend themselves but were ultimately defeated, allowing the tribes of Bohtan to continue ravaging the plateau for roughly thirty years following the initial 1855 invasion. There is no specific numbers for the population of families before the attack or the specific relocated fate of survivors. However, the events are described as causing immense human misery and displacement.

The Events of Hamidian Massacres 1895 - 1897

The Events in Hikkari Mountains 19th and 20th Century

The Events of Sayfo Genocide 1915 - 1924

The events that happened during Sayfo and all the massacres before that are divided into four categories according to the size and type of the settlement. We are working on documenting all the events in all Syriac settlements but as the number of them became increasingly large, they are arranged into Vilayets and smaller administrative units according to the last known Ottoman government administrative structure that was published in Jongerden, Joost and Verheij, Jelle (Ed.) (2012) 

Monasteries and Sayfo Atrocities

Vilayets

• Aleppo Vilayet

  • Aleppo Sanjak:

There were seven small districts (kaza): Aleppo, İskenderun (Alexandretta), Antakya (Antioch), Belen, Idlib, Al-Bab, and Jisr al-Shughur.

• Marash Sanjak:

There were five small district (kaza): Kahramanmaraş, Pazarcık, Elbistan, Süleymanlı, and Göksun.

• • Urfa Sanjak:

There were six small districts (kaza): Urfa, Birecik, Nizip, Suruç, Harran, and Raqqa.

• Aintab Sanjak: 

There were three small districts (kaza): Gaziantep, Kilis, and Rumkale.

• Bitlis Vilayet

  • Bilits Sanjak: 

There were four small districts (kaza): Ahlat, Bilits, Hizan, and Mutki

• Genc Sanjak:

There were three small districts (kaza): Chabaghchur, Genc, and Kulp

• Moush Sanjak:

There were five small districts (kaza): Bulanik, Malazgirt, Mus, Sasun, and Varto

• Siirt Sanjak:

There were five small districts (kaza): Eruh, Kharzan, Pervari, Siirt, and Sirvan

• Diyarbakir Vilayet

  • Diyarbakir Sanjak:

There were six small districts (kaza): Beshiriyeh, Derek, Diyarbakir, Lice, Silvan, and Siverek 

• • Ergani-Maden Sanjak:

There were three small districts (kaza): Maden, Palu, and Cermik

• • Mardin Sanjak:

There five were small districts (kaza): Avine, Cizre, Mardin, Midyat, and Nisibin

• Mamuret-ul-Aziz Vilayet

  • Dersim Sanjak:

There were six small districts (kaza): Hozat, Tunceli, Çemişgezek, Akpazar, Ovacık, and Mazgirt.

• • Harput Sanjak:

There were four small districts (kaza): Mamuret-ül-Aziz/Harput, Arapgir, Keban/Maden, and Egin 

• • Malatya Sanjak:

There were five small districts (kaza): Malatya, Besni, Hisno d'Mansour/Adiyaman , Kahta, and Akcadag

Sayfo Sources

• de Courtois, Sébastien (2013), The forgotten genocide : eastern Christians, the last Arameans, trans. Vincent Aurora, Gorgias Press, NJ.

• Gaunt, David (2006), Massacres, Resistance, Protectors; Muslim–Christian Relations in Eastern Anatolia during World War I, Gorgias Press, NJ.

• Gaunt, David, Atto, Naurus, Berthoman, Soner O., (ed.) (2018), Let Them Not Return: Sayfo - The Genocide Against the Assyrian, Syriac, and Chaldean Christians in the Ottoman Empire, Berghahn Books.

• Henno, Sleman (2015), The Persecution and the Extermination In Tur Abdin 1915, Jonk, Jan (tr.)

• Jongerden, Joost and Verheij, Jelle (Ed.) (2012), Social Relations in Ottoman Diyarbekir, 1870-1915, Leiden.

• Qarabashi, Abdulmassih Nea'aman (2005), The Shed Blood; The Syriac Massacres in Mesopotamia. Lebanon

• Shabo, Talay & Barthoma, Soner O (2015), Sayfo 1915. An Anthology of Essays on the Genocide of Assyrians/Arameans during the First World War, Gorgias Press, NJ.