Massacre Assyrians

The massacres of the Assyrian Peuple were organized in 1915, parallel to the Armenian genocide, in the East of the Ottoman Empire where part of these people lived in Diaspora.

Certain Assyrian sources speak about “Assyrian genocide”.

In Anatolia Othoman and in the the Russian Caucasus, the period which goes from the middle of the 19th century until the First World War was that of massacres with large scales. Following the military defeats undergone on the Caucasian face, the Turkish authorities pretext a plot of the Armenians against the Empire, with an aim of legitimating the deportation and the extermination of those. Always accordingly of ethnic and religious purification, of the massacres of Assyro-Chaldéens are started at the same period.

Context

It was above all the often rural communities concentrated in their “area-refuge” of the Tur-Abdin and the Hakkari, even if communities existed elsewhere punctually in Mésopotamie north. In addition to the Anatolia Eastern one, the Armenian as for them had been established for a long time in all the big cities of Anatolia then in all the Ottoman Empire (and as far as Italy), they were famous for their talents of craftsmen and tradesmen and were even regarded by the Othoman sultans as the “faithful Nation” of the Ottoman Empire - until turbulent the XIXe century… Just like most of the Othoman Armenians, Syriaques/Assyrian thus lived in the oriental party of the empire (Nestoriens also overflowing in the North-West of the Iran around the lake of Ourmia). They also thus had as neighbors of the Muslim populations. Put aside Hakkari - and to a lesser extent Tur-Abdin -, their communities were scattered at the sides of the Armenian , the Kurdish , the Arab or of the Turkmènes in this mosaic ethnico-nun with the borders of the countries Turkish, Kurdish, Arabic and Armenians. Just like the Armenians, Syriaques/Assyrian formed old and strong community not-Moslem woman in the west of the Ottoman Empire and were regarded as a Fifth column by the political fanatics who determined the Othoman policy with the turning of XIXe and XXe centuries, obsessed that they were by the deliquescence of the Ottoman Empire… Déliquescence encouraged by the European powers (Russia, the United Kingdom, France, German Empire, Italy) avid to control the area. Just like the Armenians also, the Assyrians them also were off-set and massacred with large scales by the local Othomans and their underlings. Just like the Armenians of the Russian empire during and after the First World War, the Assyrians of the Persian empire (nestoriens) were also massacred by the Othoman/Turkish troops in Persian territory, after their corélégionnaires of Hakkari was practically destroyed.

The massacres of the Armenians and Assyro-Araméens (also called Assyro-Chaldéens) merged for a great part: the assassins hardly made difference between the two groups of Christians. The figures of the number of the victims are not very clear, but that there was important massacres does not leave the shade of a doubt.

Massacres of populations

One could estimate that the number of massacred Armenians rises to a million, and that of Assyro-Chaldéens massacred to approximately 200.000.

Nestoriens uniates (associates and protected by the Catholic church) of the north of current Iraq, and also called Assyro-Chaldéens, could partly escape the genocide thanks to their offset geographical position. Just like the Armenians (and Kurds), the Assyrians asserted them also a national hearth in the area near the Allies (the United Kingdom, France, the United States) during and after the war, after being encouraged to them-also by the latter in this intention.

The silence made with the “genocide” of the Assyrians

Some qualify the Assyrian massacre of genocide, and do one “forgotten of the History of them”.

Put aside the negationnism of practiced State in Turkey in connection with any dark page of its history, a silence challenges: that quasi-total made around the “genocide” makes in parallel, at the same time, in close areas (even the same ones) and under similar conditions, with the Christian populations of Anatolia and Mésopotamie of north speaking the Araméen (at least in their liturgy) which one calls Süryani in Turkish, Suryani in Arabic, Kurdish and Persian, or Syriaques in Occident, and which names themselves Assyrian Suryoyo in araméen and since the 20th century. One of the reason of the “lapse of memory” concerning the “genocide” of the Assyrians/Syriaques would be due to the fact that it was above all the often rural communities.

References

Joseph Yacoub, the assyro-chaldéenne question, Powers European and the SDN (1908-1938), 4 vol., Lyon thesis, 1985, p.156
Bryce, James Lord - British Government Carryforward one the Armenian Massacres off April-December 1915
rev. Joseph Naayem, O.I. - Shall This Die Nation? , 1921
Bryce, James Lord - British Government Carryforward one the Armenian Massacres off April-December 1915
Austin, H.H. (Brig. - Gen.): The Baquba Refugee Camp - Year account off the work one behalf off the persecuted Assyrian Christians. London 1920
the Courteous one, Sebastien. The Forgotten Genocide. Eastern Christians, The Last Arameans.
The NewYork Times - October 11,1915: Turkish Horrors in Persia

Simple: Assyrian Genocide

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