Sayfo; Village of Al-Ka'biya

Village of Al-Ka'biya

On April 1, 1915, the Ottoman Empire government issued an order for all Christians to surrender their weapons. On April 10, three Ottoman officers and about 70 soldiers surrounded the village of Al-Ka'biya in Tur-'Abdin. They ordered all males aged 15 and older to assemble, threatening to burn those who remained behind with their families. The soldiers then demanded weapons, including cannons and rifles, and when the villagers claimed to have none, the officers began to torture them and the brutal flogging lasted for nine hours. Five village notables were then separated and killed. The priests, Father Moses and monk-priest Noah, were also arrested, tortured, and mocked.

That evening, the soldiers demanded that the women prepare dinner and slaughtered 80 sheep. Many acts of debauchery committed against the women and girls. Afterward, the soldiers took 152 male captives to Diyarbakir. After five days of torture, the men were forced into hard labor. On the 15th of April, they were taken to a mountain overlooking the Euphrates, stripped of their clothes, killed, and their bodies were thrown down.

On April 20, Kurdish tribes attacked the village. The remaining villagers fled to Diyarbakir, but about 50 were killed. In Diyarbakir, the priest of the Church of the Virgin Mary, Father Bishara, refused them sanctuary and instead reported them to Governor Rashid Pasha. The governor ordered them to leave the city and go back to their village. The four soldiers he sent as "guards" killed four of the villagers on the way back. The remaining villagers, numbering 160 households, returned to the village and huddled together.

On May 30, Governor Rashid Pasha sent his assistant, Shakir Bey, along with 50 men from the Ramu clan to Al-Ka'biya. They entered the village at dawn, tied up the males, and tortured them with hot iron rods to demand money. In five hours, they collected 1,500 gold pounds. The captives were taken across the Tigris River toward the village of Deirka. At a hill called Qurt Qiya ("Wolf's Cave"), all the prisoners were killed and their bodies were burned. The deacon Qaryaqos, who had been encouraging the villagers to remain steadfast in their faith, was killed.

After this, only women, girls, and children remained. Kurdish tribes began to take the women, forcing many to flee.

Later, the governor of Diyarbakir, claiming to offer protection, urged the remaining villagers to return to Al-Ka'biya, promising them provisions. The villagers, though hesitant, returned.

On September 12, about 150 soldiers led by Khalil Çelebi surrounded the village. They told the villagers they would be moved to the city to make way for Bulgarian immigrants. They gathered everyone and led them toward the city. Realizing they were being led to their deaths, a man named Daniel and others began to sing hymns and praise God.

They were taken to the same location, Qurt Qiya, where the previous group was killed. After being allowed to rest and drink water, the males were separated from the females and shot. The text describes Kurdish tribes then attacking the bodies with knives, swords, and axes, as well as the violation of women's honor and children being snatched from their mothers.

The passage concludes by stating that a man from Mosul named Abdullah later found a wounded woman and a surviving child. Of the 550 people in this last group, only three children and two women survived for a short time. Ultimately, the text states that of the original 1,650 souls in Al-Ka'biya, only a few survived.