Massacres of Diyarbekir (1895)

The massacres were initially directed at Armenians, instigated by Ottoman politicians and clerics under the pretext of their desire to dismantle the state, but they soon changed into a general anti-Christian pogrom as the killing moved to the Diyarbekir Vilayet and surrounding areas of Tur Abdin, which were inhabited by ethnic Assyrian Christians.

[1] Kurdish raids on villages in the Diyarbekir Vilayet intensified in the years following a famine that ravaged the region.

[4] The Hamidian massacres came when some 4,000 Armenians in the Sasun district of Bitlis Vilayet in 1894 rebelled against Kurdish tribes, who demanded traditional taxes from them.

More than 7,500 Armenians died as a result,[5] and an intervention by European powers lead to the dismissal of the Governor of Bitlis, Bahri Paşa, in January 1895.

[6] Three European Powers - Britain, France and Russia - thinking that reform of the Ottoman local government would help to prevent violence as occurred in Sasun, proposed to Sultan Abdul Hamid II a reform plan, planning control of the Kurds and the employment of Christian assistant-governors.

The massacre in Constantinople was followed by more Muslim-Armenian conflict in other areas, always costing the lives of vastly more Christians than Muslims.

As news of clashes and massacres spread throughout the empire Diyarbekir also took its share, with Muslim-Christian distrust reaching unprecedented levels.

Muslims, also in Diyarbakır, thought that an Armenian Kingdom was about to be created under protection of European Powers and the end of Islamic rule was imminent.

The influential Kurdish Sheikh of Zilan, who played an important role in the massacres of Armenians in Sasun and Mush in the previous year, was present in the city inciting the Muslims against Christians.

[9] Muslim notables in Diyarbakır, who had lost their trust in the Sultan, telegraphed him that:[8] Armenia was conquered with blood, it will only be yielded with blood.On 4 October 1895, Mehmed Enis Pasha, an official highly disliked among the city's Christians for his alleged role in a fire that destroyed Christian shops in Mardin, was appointed the governor of the city.

A petition was signed by 1200 people and was sent to the Armenian Patriarchate to protest their support for the governor, the Assyrian bishop of the city was forced to seek refuge in the French consulate.

[9] Attacks on Christian neighbourhoods began the following morning in a systematic manner: houses were looted and burned; men, women and children killed; and girls were kidnapped and converted to Islam.

[12] The Diyarbekir massacres continued to the third day, but later ended upon the orders of the governor, proclaiming that anybody caught using weapons would receive severe punishment.

In the village of Sa'diye inhabited by 3000 Armenians and Assyrians, the Turks first killed the men, then the women and finally the children.

Isaac Armalet, a contemporary Syriac Catholic priest, counts 10 more villages which were entirely erased from the map, amounting to a total of 4,000 victims.

[16] The total number of people left in need of nutrition and shelter in the province was estimated at 50,000 by Meyrier, Hallward later revised the figure to 20,000-30,000 (excluding Mardin and Palu).

[23] It was only at the end of November that the governor of Diyarbakır issued an order to protect the churches, although the atmosphere remained tense until the spring of 1896.

[29] The official story of the Syriac Orthodox Church about the events varies considerably from views shared by historians and contemporaries.

He mentioned that Patriarch Ignatius Abdul Masih II hurried to Diyarbakır upon hearing the news of an Armenian massacre and sent a telegram to the Sultan obtaining an order to protect the Assyrians.

[31] According to an oral tradition, the massacres caused the patriarch to lose his mind and he started drinking after he returned to Mardin and was later deposed.

[31] According to Patriarch Barsoum, Tur Abdin was also spared when two Assyrian notables sent a request for protection from the Ottoman authorities in Diyarbakır.

[27] Several sources mention that the Ottoman authorities had forced the senior clerics, including the Patriarch of the Syriac Orthodox Church to sign official documents stating that the chaos was caused by an Armenian revolt.