City of Urfa

Urfa's Syriac Community: Displacement, Persecution, and Resilience

The city of Urfa, historically known as Edessa, was a significant location for Syriac communities during the Sayfo, also referred to as "the year of the sword" or "Firman" (official decree), which marked the genocide against Syriac, Chaldean, and Assyrian Christians in the Ottoman Empire. Urfa (ancient Edessa) was a western outpost for Syriac Orthodox Church and one of the most southern Armenian Churches. It was an agricultural surplus region, with many merchants involved in exporting agricultural products to Aleppo and Lebanon. In 1895, Christians of all faiths in Urfa were victims of the Hamidian massacres and pogroms. Prior to World War I, 7,200 Syriacs lived in the town of Urfa, and an additional 8,800 in 10 outlying villages, some of which were very large, like Roum Kale, Serudj, Harran, and Biredjik, with nearly 2,000 Syriac residents each. There were also 200 Chaldean residents with 2 priests, and 2 schools.

During the Sayfo, Syriac families from Urfa were part of deportation convoys routed towards Ras Al-’Ain, with some fortunate ones then boarded onto a train for Aleppo. Aleppo received a large number of Syriac families from Urfa who were able to integrate there. The Syriac Orthodox Archbishop of Syria, Severius Aphram Barsaum, presented figures for the losses of the Syriac Orthodox Church to the peace conference in February 1920, reporting 340 dead in Urfa. These figures were limited to his jurisdiction and areas where the Syriac Orthodox church was active, and probably did not include deaths from starvation or disease. The last Syriac Orthodox people that survived Sayfo, were forced to leave Urfa and migrate to Aleppo in 1924 in what became known as the last Caravan from Urfa. With them, was an old Syriac manuscript for the Patriarch Michael Rabo book