Sayfo; Village of Sa'adia

Village of Sa'adia

1895:

The village of Sa'adia, located ten kilometers southeast of Diyarbakir, was attacked on November 1, 1895, by Kurds and soldiers. The village had a mixed population of approximately 300 Syriac and Armenian families. The attackers started killing the men and children and taking the women and girls captive. After that, they robbed the empty houses. 

When that happened, the Christian people fled and took refuge inside their church, locking the door. the attackers responded by making a hole in the roof of the church to throwing straw and oil onto the people inside and then burning the church and all the refugees inside. Those who survived the fire tried to escape by opening the door, but the Kurds were waiting outside and killed the survivors. Only three men managed to escape the village and fled to Diyarbakir to report the crime.

1915

The district commissioner from the village of Brafa arrived with about seventy Christian men from Al-Bashiriya. Near a riverbank tunnel in the village of Taba, he ordered the soldiers and Kurds to kill these men, specifically instructing them to use swords, axes, and iron tools rather than rifles. A soldier was a direct witness to the brutality, recalling that after one Christian had his throat cut, he continued to talk for ten minutes, praying and mentioning the name of Christ. Following the execution of the prisoners, the commissioner severely rebuked the local leader for not having already killed the Syriac and Armenian Christians in his own area, a clear sign to the remaining Christians that their extermination was imminent.

Upon hearing this news, the Christians of Sa'adia informed their priest, Father Daoud, who served both the Syriac and Armenian residents. The priest gathered his congregation and, after offering the Divine Sacrifice and having them receive Holy Communion, he gave a comforting and encouraging speech before telling them to flee. When the soldiers entered the village to carry out their mission, they were unable to find Father Daoud or the men who had successfully escaped before their arrival. The priest and his companions had fled into a tunnel on the riverbank that connected to the Tigris, where they hid for eight days. During this time, a loyal Muslim man secretly sustained them by bringing them food.

On the ninth day, a suspicious person noticed the Muslim man carrying bread, realized he had no one in the area to feed, and informed the soldiers. They tracked the loyal Muslim man back to the hiding spot, listening as he called out to the priest to take the food. Once the priest and his companions had eaten and the Muslim man departed, the soldiers attacked, captured, and tied them up, bringing them to the village of Taba for what was described as bitter torture. They focused especially on the priest. During the torment, one of the detainees nearly renounced Christ, prompting Father Daoud, even as he was being tortured, to scream and prevent the lapse of faith. The priest then fought furiously to keep a small silver box in his pocket, but when the beating briefly stopped, he opened it, took something from inside, swallowed it, and then threw the empty box to his tormentors.

The soldiers continued to beat and torture the men until they could no longer do so. Two of the men died from the beatings before the rest were led to a watering place and killed. The soldier expressed amazement at Father Daoud's incredible endurance, noting that the priest suffered the most agonizing pain while mocking his torturers. He did not utter a single cry of pain, and so these poor, innocent lives ended in martyrdom.