Sayfo; City of Lice

Lice and the Surrounding Areas During the Hamidian Massacres (1895) and Sayfo (1915)

The Hamadian massacres spread rapidly across the six eastern Ottoman vilayets, including Diyarbekir, where Lice (also spelled Lije)is located, by late November 1895. In the first half of November 1895, the towns of Lice and Hani were beleaguered by Kurds where Ottoman reports indicate "disorders with loss of life" in Lice. The valley of the Lice district, to the northwest of Diyarbekir, was a site of massacres where victims were found with "throats slit" and "stomachs disemboweled". This suggests that Christians in this area, broadly including Syriac Orthodox, were subjected to mass killings. During the Hamidian massacres, Syriac Orthodox were targeted. While hostile Kurds attacked without differentiation between Syriac Orthodox and Armenian victims in many cases, in still other areas, the Syriac Orthodox formed the great majority of victims.

Lice was an administrative center in the district of Ma’den-Arghana, located in the northeast of Diyarbekir. In 1915, Lice Kaza had 12,000 inhabitants, of whom 7,000 were Christians, including  Syriac and Chaldean population of about 4,100 persons, alongside a larger Armenian settlement. In spring 1915, a local militia of Muslim volunteers was created in Lice. Christians were ordered to collect all their weapons and leave them at their churches, and the militia then armed themselves with these confiscated weapons. 

The Kaymakam (district governor) Hüseyin Nesim Bey vociferously refused to participate in the anti-Christian activities. He was subsequently assassinated on his way to meet the vali (provincial governor), and the police executed several local governors judged too moderate in their anti-Christian sentiments, including the governor of Lice. Following Kaymakam's assassination, guards were immediately placed outside all Christian homes, and all Christian civil servants were fired from their jobs. The next day, 50 Christian notables were arrested, imprisoned, and tortured with methods such as bastinado. After several days, these arrested individuals were tied together arm-in-arm in pairs, marched outside the town, and slaughtered by Kurds at a place called Dashta-Pis, near Diyarbekir, where their corpses were placed in caves. Among those killed were Syriac Orthodox priests from the villages of Qarabash and Ka’biye, who had been jailed in Lice. A second wave of mass arrests, which included several priests, followed, leading to further mass executions. The gangs massacred and plundered neighboring Christian villages, including Fum, Chemchem, Jum, Tappa, Nagle, Pasor, and Khaneke. 

This period of destruction in Lice occurred before the holiday of Ramadan (mid-July), with no further massacres reported during that month. However, once Ramadan ended, murders resumed, focusing on the deportation of women and children, as the males had already been eliminated. The valley of the Lice district was again noted as a site of widespread killings during this period.

The methods of killing included mass slaughter with hand-held weapons (swords, daggers, scimitars, bayonets, axes), shooting, and burning alive. A significant number of Syriac Orthodox were also annihilated indirectly through forced deportations (death marches), resulting in deaths from starvation, thirst, disease, and exposure due to the destruction of their homes and livelihoods.