Sayfo; Village of Al-Qusûr

Al-Qusûr: A Village's Sayfo Massacre

The village of Al-Qusûr (Goliye) experienced significant events during the Sayfo. al-Qusûr is situated 7 kilometers south of Mardin along the main road and agricultural center on the Mardin plain. 

Until the late nineteenth century, it was a predominantly Syriac Orthodox Christian village with about 400 households and three churches. al-Qusûr was also subjected to a pogrom in November 1895. 

On July 2nd, 1915, at eight o’clock in the evening, Memduh Bey, the police chief of Mardin, ordered the attack on al-Qusûr. The militia responsible for the attack was headed by Sergeant Yusuf, son of Nuri Ensari, and aided by chieftain Mohammed Ağa of the Milli tribe. Kurdish tribesmen, specifically from the Deşi, Mişkiye, and Helecan tribes, as well as some Arabs, joined in the attack on Al-Qusûr.

The village was invaded, and its population was massacred and  many villagers were crammed together in the house of the village headman Elias Cabbar Hinno and burned alive. Children were subjected to extreme brutality, being thrown from roofs and mutilated with axes. After the massacre, The village was plundered, people were killed in their homes, and fires raged for 8 days. There are estimated 3,200 deaths, with only a few hundred survivors escaping to Mardin or finding shelter in Kurdish villages. When the village was burned down, a spectacle that was visible from Mardin, where the inhabitants watched in awe. 

These events highlight the severe violence and systematic extermination faced by Christian communities during the Sayfo, including burning alive, mutilation, and the complete destruction of villages.