Sayfo; Village of Kafro Elayto

Village of Kafro Elayto 

This village is situated about 8 kilometers north of Midyat and about 4 kilometers from the village of Bote. At the time of Sayfo, there lived about 80 Syriac families, who all spoke Syriac, and there were seven priests serving the Syriac community in Kafro Elayto, who also cared for the villages surrounding this village. The priests were: Fa­ther Hausho and his son, Father Aho, and also Father Gawriye of the Gessi family, Father Henna, Father Thomas (Tuma) of the Isho family, Father Lahdo of the Khano family and Father Joseph, the father of Father Barsaumo, who was ordained in 1951 for the villages of the Mor Kyriakos Monastery in the region of Bsheriye. The Syriac leader of the village was Yaunan of the Beth Gessi family. About thirty Kurdish families also lived in the village.

When the Syriac people residents of Kafro Elyato heard the news of the murder of the Syriacs people and other Christians, they sought refuge in Mor Ya’koub Church. Then the Kurds came with Yousif Agha, the son of Hassan Shamdin and the leader of Kfargusson; they surrounded the church and attacked the Syriac Orthodox people refugees in the church. As the Syriac community had not prepared for this siege, they didn’t have enough weapons on them. There was also a shortage of water and defenders could not reach a well through a tunnel underground. When the attackers heard about the well, they threw wood and wick thread into it and set it on fire. As such, the Syriac people could not go and draw any water from the well and had to suffer from thirst. 

Even with these dire conditions, the siege lasted five days. Then Yousif Agha stood in front of the church door and swore to them that he would not kill them. The Syriac people trusted his words, as they could not fight anymore and if they stayed in the church, they would die of hunger and thirst. They opened the door. First the Kurds handcuffed the priest, then the leaders and a reverend monk, Adam (Odom) from Kafro. Next, they took them outside the village, started to torment and pester them in all manners possible and finally killed all of them. The monk's eyes were put out with a red hot poker while he was still alive. Then they took the rest of the villagers outside and killed them all. Several women threw themselves into wells. They did not kill the children, but made them their slaves, servants or shepherds, until they had grown up. The children did not convert to Islam, but they remained Christians. And the few villagers that had escaped the massacre fled to ‘Ayn-Wardo.