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Sayfo, the Syriac Genocide
This section talks about the Syriac people collective sacrifices during Sayfo and the many massacres before Sayfo that go back almost 2000 years in their ancestral homeland in Southern Turkey that at that was part of the Ottoman Empire at that time. On the eve of World War I, the Syriac population was living in six eastern Ottoman provences, Bitlis, Van, Kharput (Ma'murat al-Aziz), Diyarbaker, Erzerum, and Sivas. During Sayfo, the Syriac genocide, about 300,000 Christians Syriacs, Chaldeans, and Assyrians, were killed, kindnaped, raped, sold, or forced to convert to Islam. Their properties were stolen or destroyed, and they were deported and forced to leave their ancestral homeland in Turkey. This number is in addition to 2 millions Christian Armenians and Greeks who witnessed the same fate. These events that started in 1894 and ended in 1924 destroyed hundreds of churches and monasteries and wiped out the religious and cultural Syriac heritage from the ancestral homeland. Gradually, the names of the martyres and summery of the events that happend in many Syriac towns and villages will be added
Events
The events that happened during Sayfo are devided into 4 catagories according to the size and type of the settlement. We are working on documenting all the events in all Syriac settelments that are estimated to be more than 250 settlements.
Monastries
Districts
Cities
Villages
Village of Ahlah: There were 3 or 4 families living in this village in 1915. The Kurds of the village let them live through the events of Sayfo. The families that used to live there, later emigrated to Sweden and the Netherlands.
Village of Anhel: Anhel is situated two hours on foot south of Midyat, and it is one of the major villages in Tur Abdin. Not one enemy of Christians has ever attacked it, and no one was ever killed there. It is said to have been protected by Aziz Agha from Midyat, from the Mahmado family, and that he never allowed either the government troops or the Kurdish clans to attack it. Many Syriac families that had escaped the massacres found refuge there, until they were able to return to their villages.
Village of Arkah: About 70 Syriac families used to live in this village. It is situated north of the Mor Malke Monastery, about twenty minutes on foot from the monastery. The leaders were Joseph and Gawriye Enz. And also in this case, the inhabitants left their village, when they heard about the massacres of the Christians. They took everything they could carry and found refuge in the Mor Malke Monastery. There they stayed until the end of the massacres of the Christians in Turkey.
Village of Armun: This village is situated north of Kfargussan and there were about 10 Syriac families living there. One man, Mohammed Latif, a Kurd from Kfargussan of the Hassan Shimdi family, went to the administrator of Hesno d-Kifo, and incited him against the Syriac community living in the village until the administrator took his soldiers with some Kurdish clans and raided the village. He arrested all the Syriac people that lived there and took them away from the village and finally killed them. Only about 10 Syriac people succeeded in escaping the massacre.
Village of Baglet: Four Syriac families lived in this village in 1915. They were all murdered. Only one young man, Hanoa, managed to save himself and went to live in Qamishli.
Village of Balane: This village is situated south of Kfargussan and had about five Syriac families living there. They were all murdered by the Kurds and by the leaders of Kfargussan.
Village of Barlat: There were 10 Syriac families living in this village in 1915. Some of them were killed by the Kurds, others managed to escape the massacre. Batman
Village of Bazar: There were about 10 Syriac families living in this village. Before the attacks, their leader, Malke, the son of Hanna Haydo, led them to Beth Sbirino but they did not return after the persecutions.
Village of Beth Ishaq: About 20 Syriac families lived in Beth Ishaq in 1915. About half of them were killed, the others managed to save themselves and went to Beth Sbirino, where they stayed till the end of the persecutions. Then they returned to their village, they found that their church becasme a residence for the Kurdish village leader. They remained in the village until 1929 when they all emigrated to Syria.
Village of Celik: Ten Syriac families lived in this village. They were killed by the supporters of the Rammo family.
Village of Dair Qube: About 10 Syriac families lived in Dair Qube. These families were urged by the Calabi Agha to flee to Hah and because of that, none of them were killed. After the massacres ended, they did not return to their villages because they were originally from Hah.
Village of Deli (near Mardin): About 5,000 Kurds and Arabs attacked the village. Although 120 militiamen were initially posted to protect Christians, they quickly switched sides. The village was plundered, people killed in their homes, and fires raged for 8 days, visible from Mardin. A Turkish official found 1,700 corpses there. There was reported 3,200 deaths in Deli, with few survivors.
Village of Derhab: This village only had a single Syriac family, whose head was Odom. He was killed together with his family.
Village of Eshtrako: About 20 Syriac and 200 Kurdish families lived in this village. On the day of the Holy Apostle Thomas on July 3rd, the Kurds in the village gathered under their leaders, Latif, the son of Gemmo, and Hetto. They took all Syriac men, women and children and, cold-bloodedly, cut them down with a sword. Only twelve young men escaped the massacre. After the massacres, they returned to their village, through the mediation of Calabi Agha.
Village of Garissa: There were about 10 Syriac families living in Garissa 1915. They first moved to Beth Zabdai, and later to Mosul, where they settled.
Village of Gerdahul: About 10 Syriac families lived in this village in 1915, the other inhabitants were Kurds. The Syriac families fled during one night. When the Kurds noticed that they had gone, they went after them. Then there was a fight between the two parties, but the Kurds could not succeed in the fight and the Syriac families went to live in Tur-Abdin.
Village of Grebya: About 10 Syriac families lived in this village and all of whom had fled to the mountains before their attackers came.
Village of Gerfashe: About 40 Syriac families lived in this village. The village leader was Jallo Hanna from Arbo as the people in this village were mainly from Arbo. Before the murderers could raid the village, the Syriac families fled to the mountains; they took along their belongings, furniture and food, and they found a refuge in the Mor Malke Monastery. Some of them went on to the Mor Eliyo Monastery, near Hbob.
Village of Gerkeshamo: Some 35 Syriac families used to live there, most of whom were from Hbob (Ehwo). The village leader was Aziz Habib from the Mushil Quryo family. When the attackers arrived, people left the village with anything they could carry, and they went to Mor Bobo monastery. From there they climbed the mountain to Hbob.
Village of Grimierah: In this village lived about seventy Syriac and ten Kurdish families. The leader of the Syriac people was Malak, the son of Shemun Malke. When people heard about the massacre of the Syriacs in Helwa, Duger and other villages, they also took everything they could carry and walked to Mor Bobo in the night and from there to Beth Debe village. When peace came, they returned again to their village.
Village of Hedel: At the time of the 1915 persecutions, there were about 20 Syriac families living in Hedel. They sought refuge in Beth Zabdai and stayed there till the end of the persecutions. From there they moved to Iraq.
Village of Kafro Tahtayto: In this village there lived about 30 Syriac families. Some of them fled to the Mor Malke Monastery, others to the Mor Eliyo Monastery in Hbob and the villagers stayed in these places until the end of the persecutions, and then they returned home again.
Village of Laylan: About 15 Syriac families lived in this village in 1915. They were attacked by the so-called Kurdish Haskan clan, whose leader was Ahmed Yousif. The murderers took all men, women and children to a place between Sihah and Helwa, and killed them there. There were no survivors.
Village of Marwaniye: This village is situated south of Dufne and had about ten Syriac families living there. All of them were killed simultaneously by the leaders of the village of Kfargussan.
Village of Meshti: This village is situated north of Karburan, on the south bank of the Tigris River. About 40 Syriac families used to live there. They all spoke Eastern Syriac. Ali Rammo and the Kurdish clans killed all the inhabitants.
Village of Mharkan: About 15 Syriac families lived in this village and it had two leaders from the Shamosho Aho family. Both leaders were drafted to serve in the Ottoman army in WWI but they fled to the village of Hbob (Ehwo) where they found refuge in the mountains. After the Kurds and the Turks had massacred the inhabitants of Helwa and Duger, they came to Mharkan and killed anyone that crossed their path. As it was at night, some people managed to hide in the shrubs around the village and in haystacks. After the murderers left, the survivors fled to Tur Abdin.
Village of Qowal: This village used to be inhabited by about 20 Syriac families .These were all massacred together.
Village of Shufirnassa: Only a solitary Syriac family lived in this village. Their leader was Aphrem Abdo. He was clubbed to death, together with his family.
Village of Tell Dijhan: All the Syriac families there, about 15, fled from this village to Tur Abdin before the attackers arrived.
Village of Tell Hassan: About Fifteen Syriac families used to live here and all of them were killed.The village leader was Amar Osman and slaughtered seven widows, offered them as sacrifice and bathed in their blood in order to attain perfection.
Village of Tell Manar: Ten Syriac families used to live here in 1915. They moved to M'are and tragically sought shelter from the massacre with the evil Yousif Khasho. There, they were killed together with the Syriac refugees from M'are.
Village of Tell Yakoub: There were about 10 Syriac families living in this village and all of them were also killed in M'are.
Village of Tell Sha’ir: Ten Syriac families used to live in this village. Many fled to Tur-Abdin and were safe there, the others were killed.
Village of Sarug: This village belonged to Lahdo Barsaumo from Hbob (Ehwo), and it had some 30 Syriac families living in it and Malke was the priest in the church. The people in this village were not killed because all had fled before the murderers came. They were assisted by about fifty armed Syriac men from Tur Abdin, led by Habsuno Arsan and Malke Sune, who took them from the village of Sarug to Hbob in the mountains.
Village of Zangan: This village lies northeast of Karburan, on the bank of the Tigris River. All the 30 Syriac families in the village were killed by the tyrants of the Rammo family.
Sayfo Sources
de Courtois, Sébastien (2013), The forgotten genocide : eastern Christians, the last Arameans, trans. Vincent Aurora, Gorgias Press, NJ.
Gaunt, David (2006), Massacres, Resistance, Protectors; Muslim–Christian Relations in Eastern Anatolia during World War I, Gorgias Press, NJ.
Gaunt, David, Atto, Naurus, Berthoman, Soner O., (ed.) (2018), Let Them Not Return: Sayfo - The Genocide Against the Assyrian, Syriac, and Chaldean Christians in the Ottoman Empire, Berghahn Books.
Henno, Sleman (2015), The Persecution and the Extermination In Tur Abdin 1915, Jonk, Jan (tr.)
Shabo, Talay & Barthoma, Soner O (2015), Sayfo 1915. An Anthology of Essays on the Genocide of Assyrians/Arameans during the First World War, Gorgias Press, NJ.
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