Sayfo; City of Siirt

City of Siirt

The city of Siirt (which has a few different spellings) is located in southeastern Turkey along a tributary of the Bohtan River in what was historically the Bitlis Vilayet. Geographically, it lies within the foothills of the mountains and functioned as a major commercial center for a region extending into northern Iraq and Syria. Historically, the region was inhabited by a diverse Christian population composed of Syriac Orthodox, Chaldeans, and Armenian Christians. The Syriac people lived under Ottoman rule as part of the millet system from the sixteenth century onwards, following the Ottoman occupation of eastern Anatolia. While the city itself was a commercial hub, the broader region faced chronic instability.

In the years between 1839 and 1841, the Kurdish emir Badr Khan Beg initiated massacres against the Christians of Tur Abdin, which preceded his more widely documented campaigns in the Hakkari mountains. These early atrocities created a state of permanent insecurity for Christian villages in the vicinity of Siirt and Tur Abdin. During the Bedir Khan massacres of 1842 to 1846, lethal conflicts erupted between the Kurds and the Assyrians. Badr Khan, the emir of Bohtan who resided in the Cizre area, used internal tribal disputes as a pretext to launch invasions targeting Christian populations. These operations were not limited to the Hakkari region but extended westward to encompass much of Tur Abdin and the surrounding Bohtan areas, where Siirt is situated. During the first campaign in 1843, an estimated seven to ten thousand Assyrians were killed, and hundreds were captured and sold as slaves. A second invasion in 1846 systematically destroyed any villages that had been previously bypassed.

After that, the condition of Christians in the eastern provinces dramatically worsened. In 1895, massacres of Christians, including Syriac Orthodox, occurred in the cities of Siirt and Bitlis. While some chroniclers suggested Syriac communities were less affected in 1895, it is noted that massacres were widespread in Eastern Anatolia during 1894–1896. During these Hamidian massacres, thousands of Armenians and Syriac Christians were slain in the Bitlis and Harput areas without mercy, leaving many Christians dead and their wives and children taken captive. The scale of these crimes was immense, often attributed to the Hamidiye regiments formed by Sultan Abdul Hamid II to reinforce Ottoman superiority through a pan-Islamic ideology. While some Kurdish leaders like Ibrahim Pasha were noted for providing protection to Christians in places like Viranshehir during the 1895 riots, other areas saw massive destruction. The French Dominican Hyacinthe Simon's manuscript, which documents events up to June 1916 and includes chronological lists of massacres, states that in Siirt approximately 4,000 Christians were massacred in the town and its surroundings. Among those who perished in Siirt in 1895 was Father Ephrem, a Syriac monk from the monastery of Mar Ephrem in Mardin.

The time spanning the years 1915 to 1924 represents the most devastating era for the Christian population of Siirt, often referred to as the Sayfo or Year of the Sword. Siirt was among the regions in the broader area that were annihilated due to systematic and organized massacres. Before the atrocities, the Chaldean diocese in the Siirt region consisted of approximately 5,430 persons, with 21 priests and 31 churches. Other estimates suggest the total Christian population in the district was as high as 60,000, including 25,000 Armenians, 20,000 Syriac Orthodox, and 15,000 Chaldeans. The systematic extermination in Siirt was orchestrated by Vali Jevdet Bey, the governor of Van, and General Halil Bey, who entered the town in June 1915 after being expelled from Van by the Russian army. The atrocities in Siirt were characterized by extreme brutality, developing as part of a general massacre unleashed by Vali Jevdet Bey.

The government in Siirt began by gathering Christian men, who were subsequently killed. In May 1915, Christian notables and religious leaders from Siirt and its surrounding villages, including Syriac Orthodox leaders and priests, were arrested. They were then led outside the city and massacred by soldiers and Kurds. In mid-June 1915, Ottoman forces and Kurdish tribes began purging the city of Christians, leading to mass decapitations in streets and homes. On a single hill north of the town, 767 men were shot. At a location known as Ras-el-Hadjar, Muslims assembled children aged six to fifteen, slit their throats one by one, and threw their bodies into an abyss. On June 18, 1915, Rafael de Nogales, serving in the Ottoman army, witnessed the massacre in Siirt, describing the highway hills as being crowded with thousands of half-nude and still bleeding corpses killed by bullets and yatagans, with some still alive being pecked at by vultures and struck by scavenger dogs. Killings became open, and Christian women and children were expelled in groups by Kurds.

A survivor from Siirt, who was ten years old at the time, recounted that Kurds took 20,000 to 30,000 books from the Church of Dayr-Salib, stacked them in the churchyard, set them on fire, and threw children into the flames. Those who attempted to escape were shot. When bullets ran out, daggers were used until the perpetrators were too tired to continue. In the city of Siirt, about 650 Syriac Orthodox people and 2 priests died, and one church was destroyed. Women were also subjected to stoning, and approximately 250 were killed in this manner on July 24. Notable among the victims was the Chaldean Archbishop Addai Sher, a known Chaldean scholar, who was killed on June 23, 1915, and whose extensive library of twenty to thirty thousand ancient manuscripts was burned in the churchyard. Other clerical victims included the Nestorian Bishop Thomas and several Dominican sisters.

After the massacres, the surviving women and children were deported on death marches to Mardin and Mosul, where the young were ravished or sold, while the weak were killed by gendarmes. Only about a tenth of them reached their destinations; the weakest died from hunger and fatigue along the way, while others were sold to the Kurds. Perpetrators identified in the sources include high-ranking officials and local leaders. In addition to Jevdet Bey and Halil Bey, specific instigators were Hamdi Bey (the chief of police), Hami Effendi (the mayor), and various Kurdish tribal leaders, including the sons of Haji Barkho and Sheikh Mohammed. A military unit known as the butcher battalion or kassablar taburu was specifically active in these massacres.

By the end of the First World War, the Christian community of Siirt was effectively annihilated. Only about one hundred persons remained of the Chaldean diocese that had once numbered in the thousands. The churches and monasteries were plundered, demolished, or converted into stables. After the establishment of the Turkish Republic in 1923, the remaining Christian population in the broader region faced continued state violence and expulsion. By the mid-1920s, British reports indicated that Turkey was no longer allowing any Christians to live in the mountainous regions near the border, and the systematic removal of Christian populations effectively erased their historical presence in Siirt.