Sayfo; City of Diyarbekir

City of Diyarbekir: Christian Fate

The city of Diyarbakir (historically known by its Syriac name Amid or Amida) is situated on the western bank of the Tigris River in northern Mesopotamia, approximately 100 kilometers northwest of the Tur Abdin region. It served as the capital and administrative center for a massive Ottoman province (vilayet) that, during the late nineteenth century, encompassed parts of modern-day Mardin, Şanlıurfa, Elazığ, Siirt, Batman, Şırnak, and northern Iraq. Diyarbakir was a cosmopolitan hub with a diverse population of Muslims, Christians, and Jews. Most Muslim city dwellers spoke Turkish, Kurdish, or Arabic, while the Christian population included Gregorian Armenians, Armenian Catholics, Syriac Orthodox, Syriac Catholics, Nestorians, Chaldeans, and Protestants. Syriac Christians were among the oldest communities in the region, having arrived during the early Christian era. The Syriac Orthodox were the largest Syriac community in Diyarbakir, and historical records show they numbered 400 families in 1827 and 250 families in 1842. The non-Muslim population, particularly the Armenians and Syriacs, were highly active in trade, local crafts, and intellectual life, even publishing their own periodicals. By 1913, the Ottoman census recorded 28,699 Syriacs across the province.

Ecclesiastical properties within the city walls included the Syriac Orthodox Church of the Virgin Mary (Meryem Ana), which served as the community center, the Chaldean church, the Syriac Catholic Monastery of St. Ephraim, and the Armenian St. Sarkis Church. Earlier in history, the city and its surrounding regions were subjected to a severe plague in 1502 that blocked major trade routes. The Ottoman conquest of the city occurred shortly after, in 1515, when local Sunni forces allied with Ottoman rulers seized control from the Safavid Empire. During this era, the Ottoman administration began establishing the provincial structure that would govern the diverse ethnic and religious mosaic of the region. Historical records from 1609 indicate the forced religious conversion of the Syriac Orthodox inhabitants of the al-Muhallamiyyah region, which was situated within the broader administrative reach of the Diyarbakir province.

In 1819, a conflict erupted between the Seyhzadeler family and the Milli tribe under Behram Pasha, resulting in a three-month war within the city walls that demolished one-fifth of the urban infrastructure and killed numerous citizens. By 1835, Kurdish tribal control of the roads leading to the city caused severe depopulation, reducing the number of inhabited houses from 40,000 to approximately 8,000. In 1841, a major famine resulted in the deaths of 4,000 to 5,000 Kurds who had sought refuge in the city, while a separate incident the same year led to the killing of 20 Christian inhabitants by local Muslim leaders, including the city kadi (chief judge). This destabilized the city through internal power struggles and tribal violence. During the Bedir Khan massacres from 1842 to 1846, the province was further impacted by the military campaigns of Badr Khan, the Kurdish emir of Bohtan. In 1842, his forces attacked Midyat, a major center within the Diyarbakir vilayet, destroying its walls and taking its notables captive. Subsequent campaigns in 1843 and 1846 targeted Syriac and Nestorian Christians across the province, resulting in the deaths of approximately 10,000 people and the enslavement of hundreds of survivors. These atrocities were eventually halted by Ottoman government intervention under British pressure.

In the mid-nineteenth century, the city faced structural economic decline and chronic instability. Between 1874 and 1876, a major economic crisis caused a crash in food prices and production, severely reducing the buying power of the Syriac community. In 1880, another famine struck the region, forcing Christian and Muslim peasants to flood the city in search of aid. During this period, the Dominican mission established branches in the province in 1884, and conflict between the Milli tribe and the Shammar Arabs devastated the western regions of the Mardin sanjak. In 1888, the Kurdish chieftain Hajo Sarukhan attacked several Syriac villages in Tur Abdin, murdering inhabitants and burning property.

The Hamidian massacres from 1895 to 1897 included a major massacre perpetrated in Diyarbakir city between November 1 and November 3, 1895. The violence began with the burning of the commercial districts, resulting in the destruction of 2,448 houses and over 900 shops, causing a total fire in the bazaars of the city. Mobs primarily targeted the large Armenian community, but the violence also impacted other Christians. Casualty figures for Syriac Orthodox inhabitants in the city included 36 declared and 150 actual deaths, alongside 1,000 Armenian Apostolic deaths and dozens of casualties among the Chaldean, Protestant, and Syriac Catholic communities, bringing the total number of murdered Syriacs and other Christians in the city to 167. In the surrounding rural districts, including areas like Lice, Silvan, Palu, Ergani, and Çermik, 119 Syriac and Christian villages were plundered and burned by Kurdish tribesmen who played a paramount role in the attacks, leading to approximately 30,000 Christian deaths. Perpetrators included the mayor Arif Efendi, the local Muslim notables, the police, and soldiers who fired upon Christians. The new Governor-General, Mehmed Enis Pasha, who was appointed on October 4, 1895, had a poor reputation among Christians, was accused of causing a fire in Mardin the previous year, and was believed by British and French consuls to have maintained the unrest. Conversely, the Kurdish leader Milli Ibrahim Pasha of the Milan tribe protected Christians in Viransehir and prevented tribal attacks in that specific district.

The relatively high number of Muslim casualties in Diyarbakir, which ranged from 70 to 200, suggests that the Armenians and Syriacs were not defenseless and fought fiercely. Some local Muslims and soldiers helped defend the French Consulate, while certain Muslim notables described as "Young Turks" in opposition to the Sultan protested the reforms and later formed a committee. The Syriac Orthodox Patriarch Abdul-Masih intervened by sending a telegram to Sultan Abdul Hamid, successfully obtaining an order for the protection of the Syriacs. After the violence subsided, large parts of Diyarbakir were left in ruins and the city remained unstable for months due to armed Kurds entering the city and persistent rumors of further attacks.

The events in Diyarbakir between 1895 and 1925 represent a profound period of systematic violence and demographic transformation for its Christian populations, culminating during World War I with the Sayfo (meaning "sword" in Aramaic). The Sayfo refers to the massacres of Syriac, Assyrian, and Chaldean Christians, which these communities viewed as a religiously motivated war of extermination. In late 1914, news of losses suffered by War Minister Enver Pasha caused distress and suspicion between the communities in Diyarbakir. Christian shops were confiscated, and anti-Christian violence broke out in August and September of 1914. The use of non-Turkish languages was prohibited in institutions, and by February 1915, arms searches began in Christian homes, accompanied by accusations of treason. On August 19, 1914, the city market and bazaars were burned for three days and nights; Police Chief Mehmed Memduh hindered efforts to extinguish the fire, and the provincial leadership masterminded it to facilitate looting.

On March 25, 1915, Dr. Mehmed Reshid Bey was reinstated as Vali of Diyarbakir, and Mehmed Memduh returned as provincial chief of police. Reshid, described as a fanatic who raged like a crazed bloodhound against the Christians of his vilayet, brought 30 Special Organization operatives with him, including Çerkez Harun, Çerkez Şakir, and Çerkez Aziz, giving him more effective power than an average governor. Anti-Christian activities reached a high point in the summer of 1915. The provincial government, through figures like Aziz Feyzi Bey (son of the organizer of the 1895 pogroms) and Zulfi Bey, became strong agitators for the anti-Christian campaign, aiming to not leave a single Christian, while working to undermine traditional Muslim protectors of Christians. Interior Minister Talaat Pasha was in direct communication with Reshid.

In June 1915, waves of arrests targeted Diyarbakir's Christian elite and religious leaders, including Armenian, Syriac, and Chaldean notables, who were accused of hiding weapons and subjected to severe torture witnessed by the Ottoman bureaucrat Fa’iz Al-Ghusayn in Diyarbakir prison. In May 1915, approximately 807 to 1,000 of these notables were arrested, loaded onto rafts (keleks) on the Tigris under the pretense of an 18-hour transport, and shot dead at the Reman gorge. In July 1915, another 1,500 Christian men in work battalions were killed near Kara Jorun. The German consul Holstein reported the arrival in Mosul of about 600 women and children, Armenian, Chaldean, and Syriac, whose male relatives had been massacred in Sa’irt, Mardin, and Pesh-Khabur. On September 10, 1915, over 12,000 deportees were killed on the Diyarbakir-Mardin road. Extensive massacres occurred across the Diyarbakir countryside, including attacks on villages like Charukhiye, Zurafe, and Chemchem, involving the murder of men, the plunder and burning of property, and the capture or forced conversion of women and children. During the genocide, ecclesiastical buildings were looted and used as stables or military hospitals, and their manuscript libraries were burned or used as kindling by the perpetrators. The targeted clergy included the Armenian Bishop Tchilgadian, who was burned alive in front of a mosque in 1915, and the Chaldean priest Hanna Soha, who was killed in broad daylight in the city streets.

The Diyarbakir province experienced a general massacre of Christians that caused an irreversible demographic fall. Total Christian casualties in the province from April to December 1915 are estimated at over 77,000 to 144,185 individuals, which included approximately 60,725 to 77,963 Syriac Orthodox Christians and 58,000 Armenians. The Armenian community in Diyarbakir was reduced to only 1,200 individuals who converted to Islam, and a small community of 40 Catholic Armenians remained after the deportations. Identified perpetrators included Reshid Bey, Memduh Bey, Aziz Feyzi, Zulfi Bey, and the Raman tribe under Mustafa and Omar. Survivors were subjected to forced conversion and slavery, and the physical extermination of these language users and the suppression of their culture and identity aimed to make Turkey a homogeneous country in terms of religion, nation, and language. Due to these massive displacements, Aramaic dialects, including Turoyo, underwent mixing and koineicization. By 1924, most remaining Syriacs were expelled to Syria.

The aftermath of World War I brought continued instability and further challenges for the remaining Christian communities, as killings continued throughout the war and into the era of the Turkish Republic. Survivors were frequently attacked on roads, and official orders directed that deserted Christian villages in the Mardin and Midyat regions be settled with the families of irregular cavalry members. This reign of terror continued with the 1925 Sheikh Said Revolt, which had its center in Diyarbakir. In the aftermath of the failed Kurdish rebellion, the Turkish military carried out counterinsurgency warfare and a state program of elimination and disarmament. This resulted in the torching of villages and the summary execution of thousands of Kurdish civilians using methods similar to those employed in the 1915 genocide, while Assyrians from Midyat and surrounding villages were deported and executed.

In the mid-twentieth century, the remaining Syriac Christians functioned as political hostages while the Turkish government used threats against them to stifle international recognition of the genocide. In Turkey, the Sayfo is generally not recognized, and discussion about it remains limited. Official Turkish narratives, such as a 1938 brochure from the CHP Mardin Halkevi, described the 1915 events as Mardin's greatest, most happy and dignified joy. However, descendants of survivors, particularly in the diaspora, continue to remember and seek recognition for the Sayfo, viewing it as integral to their identity and a source of collective trauma. Because Syriacs and Arameans were often collectively referred to as "Armenians" in Ottoman documents, descendants have worked to ensure that their distinct historical experiences are recognized.

Sayfo; City of Diyarbekir

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