Sayfo; Village of Dufne

Village of Dufne

This village is south of the Tigris River and very close to the village of Hesno d-Kifo and Dayro d’Slibo Monastery is in this village. In Dufne, there used to be a priest, named Shamoun, who was originally from the village of Zaz. He was ordained for the village of M'are’s church but he moved to serve in Dufne after three years. The leader of the Syriac community in the village was called Saume. The land in this village was very fertile and the inhabitants of Dufne were prosperous, where they planted cotton and other agricultural crops, and  irrigated them with water from the Tigris River.

Before the murderers attacked Dufne, some people from Charabebanna came to take Priest Shemun and his family to safety and to protect him from the massacre because they knew him, as he had lived with them for some time.

The Kurds of the Ramman clan gathered under their leader Amin Ahmed and attacked Dufne. They gathered all the Syriac people and took them to the Tigris and threw them into the river. Then, they began to search for the priest but they could not find him and they were told that he had gone to Charabebanna. When the attackers learned that, they sent servants there to kidnap him. The servants forcibly brought the priest and his brother Tuma to their leader, Amin. Tuma was stoned to death and the priest had his arms stretched, to which they fixed logs, and they started to sneer and to scoff at him. Then they took him to the d’Slibo Monastery and they kept demanding that he renounce Christ, but he did not. In his History of Tur Abdin, Mor Ignatius Aphrem I Barsoum reports that: the honorable priest had his skin torn from his body while still alive. After he had been tortured like that, they made him their rifle target and killed him.

Immediately after they had rushed into the monastery, they grabbed Monk Abdallah, killed him, threw his body into the Tigris River and ransacked the monastery and, until this day, the monastery stands empty. because no monk can stand to remain there for a long time. 

Only six Syriac people managed to escape the massacre, 3 men and 3 women. One of them was Hanna, the brother of Priest Shemun.