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Hesno d’kifo and the surrounding areas during Hamidian Massacres (1895) and Sayfo (1915)
Hesno d’kifo and the surrounding areas during Hamidian Massacres (1895) and Sayfo (1915)
During the Hamidian massacres, from November 29, 1895, until April 1896, the region of Tur Abdin, which includes Hesno d’kifo, was not subjected to massacres. This protection was attributed to a promise from a Turkish officer in charge of the region to some Syriac Orthodox notables, to protect the Syriacs according to directives from the vali. The officer reportedly kept his word, protecting Midyat and expelling Kurds from the villages around it. While massacres of Syriacs occurred in other areas like Diyarbekir province, where Syriacs were assassinated in Diyarbekir city itself in December 1895, the testimony regarding Hesno d’kifo suggests it was an exception during this period, unlike other regions where Syriac Orthodox were intended victims.
During the Hamidian massacres, from November 29, 1895, until April 1896, the region of Tur Abdin, which includes Hesno d’kifo, was not subjected to massacres. This protection was attributed to a promise from a Turkish officer in charge of the region to some Syriac Orthodox notables, to protect the Syriacs according to directives from the vali. The officer reportedly kept his word, protecting Midyat and expelling Kurds from the villages around it. While massacres of Syriacs occurred in other areas like Diyarbekir province, where Syriacs were assassinated in Diyarbekir city itself in December 1895, the testimony regarding Hesno d’kifo suggests it was an exception during this period, unlike other regions where Syriac Orthodox were intended victims.
Before 1915, Hesno d’kifo was home to several hundred Syriac Orthodox, with approximately 100 households, totaling 600-700 individuals. When Sayfo massacres started in 1915 during World War I, it was carried out by Kurds and soldiers acting under the command of the governor of Midyat. The slaughter in Hesno d’kifo lasted for more than 4 hours and was described as an "orgy of unheard of violence that spared no one, neither women nor children". There were no survivors from this massacre in Hesno d’kifo. The Syriac bishopric of Hesno d’kifo was destroyed and its monks were killed in 1915. The town of Hesno d’kifo was completely razed in 1915 and survivors and prisoners from Hesno d’kifo arrived in Midyat, indicating that these events in Hesno d’kifo predated the massacres in Midyat itself.
In the report that was submitted by Severius Aphram Barsoum, Archbishop of the Syriac Orthodox of Syria, to the Paris Peace Conference in 1919, there is no separate estimation of victims in Hesno d’kifo. However, it might have been included in the number of victims in the Midyat area which was about 26,000 victims. The total number of victims reported for the entire Syriac Orthodox Church in Southern Turkey, was of 90,313 persons killed, including 154 clerics and 156 ruined churches and monasteries.
Generally, the annihilation of Syriacs during Sayfo involved mass slaughter with hand-held weapons (swords, daggers, scimitars, bayonets, axes), shooting, and burning alive. Indirect annihilation also occurred through forced deportations leading to death from starvation, thirst, disease, and exposure due to the destruction of their homes and livelihoods.
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