Sayfo; Village of M'are

Village of M'are

This village lies in a deep valley at the bottom of the Izlo Mountain range. All houses there consisted of caves, which led to the name "M'are" (caves). To the east of this cave village is the monastery of Saint Mor Augin. At the time of Sayfo, about 50 Syriac families and about 30 thirty Kurdish families lived in the village. The priest in the village was Joseph from Arbo. Many Syriac people from surrounding villages like Grimierah, Tell Menar, and Tell Yacob had come to M'are seeking refuge from persecutions. The Syriac people had heard of the massacres which the Kurds had com­mitted but they had been able to leave the village quietly and go to Tur-Abdin, with or without the Kurd's consent, for they outnumbered the Kurds and carried weapons. 

Initially the Kurds were quite nice to them, but the Kurds leader, Yousif Khasho called together all Syriacs for a meeting, and said that  Syriac and Kurd people  have to swear not betray or kill each other. He first swore not to do any harm to the Syriac community and the Syriac people swore on the Gospel that they would not kill anyone and the Syriac community believed what the Kurds promised them and fell into their trap. However, Yousif Khasho already had meetings with Qedur Bey and his bandits to attack the Syriac community in M’are and secretly planned how to kill them. On the night that he was to carry out his plan, he sent twelve to Grimierah village to help some of the villagers there. As they were there throughout the night, Qedur Bey with Ottoman soldiers together with Hassan Hadjo and his Kurdish clans arrived and surrounded the village of M'are. 

Yousif Khasho with his six brothers surrounded each Syriac people's house with ten men and distributed his men, while all the Syriac people were asleep. When that happened he gave orders for the massacre. They killed everyone, and no one managed to escape the massacre because the village was surrounded. At daybreak, they looked if there was anyone yet alive, and they killed them also but only fifteen people managed to escape. When the men at Grimierah heard this, they took their rifles and went back to their village to see what had happened but the Kurds had laid an ambush on the way there, and when the Syriac men were within a shooting range, the Kurds started firing at them. The Syriac men wanted to return the fire, but their rifles did not work because the gunpowder was damp. So they too were massacred. 

The survivors escaped the massacre and went to Mor Bobo village and stayed there as their safe haven. The village is situated at the foot of the mountain, near the new citadel (Qal'o Hatho). When the Kurds and Hassan Hadjo, Quder Bey and Yousif Khasho heard that the Syriac people were back in Mor Bobo, they attacked them in an attempt to wipe them out completely. They tried to get permission from Sarokhan Agha to exterminate the Syriac people but Sarokhan declined their request, then he ordered his servants to arm themselves and be ready for battle. When the enemy saw that their plan had failed, they retreated. Next, he sent for help from the village of Beth Debe, to accompany the Syriac people going there and many armed men came along to help them. Sarokhan ordered the Syriac people to leave the village and he and his men accompanied them as far as Beth Debe, and then returned home.