Sayfo; City of Bshiriyyeh

City of Bshiriyyeh

The settlement's original name of Beth Shiroye took different variants according to the languages spoken in the area, including Beshiri or Bshereyeh, and is also identified as Bsheriyyah. Geographically, Beth Shiroye is defined as a town and a district located in the Batman province of southeast Anatolia to the east of Diyarbakir and north of Tur Abdin, positioned on the left bank of the Tigris River. The settlement sat at a commercial crossroad connecting Aleppo, Mardin, Diyarbakir, Siirt, Bitlis, Mosul, and Baghdad along the ancient silk road.

Beth Shiroye was an active Syriac Orthodox enclave during much of the nineteenth century. It was governed within the administrative structure of the Ottoman Empire, and while general rural insecurity existed due to Kurdish tribal rivalries, there were no large-scale organized massacres against the town itself.

During the Sayfo genocide from 1915 to 1924, Beth Shiroye was the site of significant atrocities. In the spring of 1915, the kaimakam of the district, Anisse Bey, recruited a local militia and removed from the town all male Christians, including boys as young as ten. The systematic annihilation of the Syriac population in this region was orchestrated by the governor of Diyarbakir, Reshid Bey. The Muslim sub-governor of the region initially refused to execute the extermination orders from Constantinople, which resulted in his arrest and execution by Reshid Bey's operatives. Following his removal, Reshid's militia and the Kurdish Reman tribe razed the Beshiri valley, committing massacres against the Armenians and Syriacs. Perpetrators included regular Ottoman soldiers and Kurdish irregulars from the Rama and Hazini tribes.

The population of Beth Shiroye before the atrocities of 1915 was substantial. The Syriac Orthodox community in the kaza of Beshiri included approximately 4,690 individuals living in 27 villages, with an additional 2,000 people residing in 15 villages in the nearby Bafaya sub-district. Another record identifies 30 villages and 764 families. The total number of casualties from the atrocities in Besheiriye is recorded as 4,481 individuals massacred. Survivors were deported or fled as refugees, with groups of captives from the Beshiri plain being liquidated at a cliff near the village of Sa'diye. By the 1920s, the population was radically depleted, with most survivors relocating to refugee camps or fleeing to Mosul.

Ecclesiastical properties in Beth Shiroye were specifically targeted during the genocide. The Monastery of Mor Quryaqos, located in Dera Kera within the Beshiri district, served as the residence for the Syriac bishop. The abbot of the monastery, Awgen, was targeted and killed during the massacres of 1915 (Issa, 2017, p. 134). Churches and monasteries in the Beshiri area were destroyed and their properties looted by the Ottoman army and local Kurdish tribes. The monastery of Mor Quryaqos was abolished after its inhabitants and clergy were murdered. After the Sayfo, many Syriacs from the region emigrated to Western countries or settled in Iraq and Syria. The Mlahso language, a Neo-Aramaic dialect closely related to Turoyo, was used in the Beshiri region near Diyarbakir by 200 to 300 families until the massacres of 1915 caused its near-extinction.