The Mhalmoyto city of Sawro ܨܰܘܪܐ

---

The population of Sawro

According to the English orientalist G.P. Badger [V], 871 people lived in Qeleth in the 1850s. Orientalist E. Sachau [VI] writes that in the 1880s, 180 households lived in the village. He also writes that there was an American mission center in Qeleth. He names the following village churches and monasteries: the Monastery of Mor Abay, Mor Teothuto, Mor Shabay, and the Mor Dimet Monastery; the Syriac Orthodox Mor Shamoun da Qnono Church, Mor Yuhanon Dawlamoyo Church, and St Mary Church, as well as a Syriac Catholic and Protestant church.

In the 1960s, some 320 families lived in Qeleth, all Christian Mhalmoye [VII]. Today, only one family lives in the village. Qeleth’s residents have emigrated to Western Europe, Zahle in Lebanon and the United States. The village was completely emptied between 1970-1980 after village chief Ҫirçis was assassinated. During this period, more than 80 Syriac leaders were murdered in the area. In Turkey, these killings are called Faili Meçhul cinayetler or unsolved murder cases. These Faili Meçhul cases proved disastrous for the Christian Mhalmoye presence in the region. A true exodus of Christian Mhalmoye started. All the inhabitants of Qeleth left their village and became refugees in Sweden, Germany, Netherlands, France, Switzerland and many more countries.

* Patriarch Ignatios Yeshuc I (1509-1512).
* Bishop Yuhanon of Qeleth and Dara (1905-1912). He was educated in Qeleth’s Mor Abay Monastery after which he became its well-known teacher.
* Calligrapher qasho Dawud, son of Abo Dmuna (~1389).
* Abdulahad son of Yaqoub Qelthoyo (1686-1690).
* Mgabyo Ҫirçis. Ҫirçis was the village chief in the 2000s. He was a known businessman who had founded the first winery in Mardin Province.

---

Ruins of the Mor Abay Monastery outside the villages of Qeleth and Mor Abay (Ahmadi).

---

The village of Elfan (Pinardere)

Elfan (Pinardere) had a Christian Mhalmoye population. During and after the Sayfo Genocide of 1915, most were murdered. Those who remained in the village were forced to change their religion to Islam in order to stay in the village and keep their property. [VIII]

The village of Ahmadi (Baskavak) [IX]

From information I got from an older Ahmadi resident, cammo Hassan Kavak, the last two families left the village in 1915 and fled to Bnay Bil (Bulbul).

The village of Rashidiye (Uckavak)

Consists of several villages centered around the main village of Köse. Many Christian families lived here. In 1915, they were slaughtered by the Barava Kurds [X], who dumped the bodies in a large underground cave named Tchala Kavoka (Doves’ Well) [XI] along with thousands of other Christians from Bişmil and its surroundings.

We also have to mention the extermination of the Christian Mhalmoye from the large Syriac village of Sacdiye, where the family of Hajji Ibrahim Bar Mourad’s comes from.

The village of Avine (Surgucu)

The village had a large Christian Mhalmoye population. Most were murdered in 1915, the rest fled to Mardin and later to Lebanon.

The Sayfo Genocide of 1915 in Sawro and its surrounding villages

Priest Ishak Armale, who was an eyewitness to Sayfo in 1914–1915, writes (p. 290) the following about the genocide that took place in Sawro and its surrounding villages;

“Until 1915, Sawro was inhabited by about 300 Christian Syriac / Mhalmoyo families and a few Armenian families who had settled in the city after 1912. At the end of June 1915, the infamous Baggawat (chieftains) gathered and discussed with the provincial authorities in Mardin what to do with the Christians who lived there. The message from the authorities in Mardin was clear; the Baggawat had the full freedom to commit all kinds of atrocities, torture, rape and genocide. Subsequently, the chieftains imprisoned and tortured all men and young people. The victims were then brutally killed. The leaders of the Christians, Yusuf Bar Elyas and four others, were kept hostage inside the prison.”

“After three weeks, those in charge turned to Yusuf Bar Elyas and the other four imprisoned leaders. They were told that they would be taken to the provincial capital Mardin. There they would be handed over to the governor of Mardin so that he could take a decision regarding their lives. But this turned out to be a lie. Once outside the city of Sawro, they were tortured and killed. Their bodies were thrown into ditches. The killers then returned to Sawro and went from house to house, yelling at the women and children: “Give us your gold, silver, and jewels! You will get it back in Mardin. Your men have already been sent to Mardin. You will meet them in Mardin.”

The executioners looted everything they could get their hands on. They arrested the women and children, took them to the barracks and closed the doors. They then unleashed their wildest yokels, who carried off both invaluable and valuable, both small and large, and brought the spoils to government building. After two days in prison, the tongues of women and children were dry with thirst, their stomachs empty and their strength exhausted from all the crying and lamentation. Mayor Hasan Bey, Mustafa Anfis, Hamdo, Ismail Dafo and a few others came to tell them to get ready. The women were brought out in pairs with their children by the hand or by their breasts and their fetuses in their bellies. They were all hungry, thirsty and they wept. When they got to Khirba, the soldiers started firing at them and stabbing them with their swords. Those who were not killed there were taken to the village of Bakesa (Beth Qayse), where the soldiers undressed them and searched for valuables in their clothing. Father Ishak Armale describes it like this;

“My pen has the greatest difficulty writing down all the scum and the crimes they have committed. They beated an violated virgins and naked women.”

Most survived, however. The beastly barbarians handed them some cloths to cover themselves with. After a short rest in Bakesa, the march continued.

As they approached Reshmel and Kabala, men came from the villages and took the boys and girls they liked. The women cooed like pigeons who just lost their young. The deportees were then driven on, under torture and beatings with daggers and swords, until they reached Ras El-Maydan east of Mardin. The people of Ras El-Maydan in turn picked the children who appealed to their voracious minds. The remaining women and children were then forced by the soldiers to immediately resume their nightly march towards Harrin. After this, they marched to Nusaybin and from there to the village of Kharab Gurt. There they had to rest for a while after the hardships of the long deportation march. Father Ishak Armale remarks emotionally;

“It cannot have escaped your notice, dear readers, that the women have not been given anything to eat or drink since they were taken away from their homes.”

In the morning they were awakened and again put on a brisk march. Kurds from the surrounding villages approached, grabbed them one by one, stripped them, beat them on the head and threw them down a well shaft. Finally, they hit Maryam, daughter of Abdulmasih Kalayili, on the head and threw her into the well to let death do its work slowly.

A man named Hidir, son of Sofi Murad Adkhe, happened to pass by the well when he heard a woman moaning. He shouted down into the well, “I want to save you.” She replied, “If you bring me up from here, you will kill me.” He swore by his own life and the prosperity of the state not to kill her. She said: “If the state had done any good, it would not have inflicted so much harm on the women. Their honor is the honor of the sultan.” Hidir was surprised by her confident statement and threw down a cloth she could cover herself with. Then he lowered a rope and pulled her up. He took her home and fetched a doctor who treated her. Eventually, she returned to Mardin and settled in the home of her uncle Abdulahad Shakro.

After 1918, many families returned to Sawro, though this time as human wrecks. Insecurity, persecution, and financial hardships had marked their lives. In particular at the hands of the Kurdish tribes that lived in the Barava area, which lies between Sawro and Bşhem Il ܒܫܶܡ ܐܝܠ (Bişmil) in the north.

The Christians had to do away their lands and live in poverty which caused most of them to leave Sawro and environs and settle in Mardin or move south to Syria and Lebanon. Some went to France from there. Only craftsmen and blacksmiths remained in Sawro. In the 1970s, there were about 20 Christian Syriac / Mhalmoye families in Sawro. The Sawreni (Cankalp) family was the last family to move away from the city and now lives in Sweden.

It has become a kind of custom that we equate Sayfo only with the 1915, the Year of the Sword, that is, when the genocide actually took place and the main reason why the Christian population of Turkey has been decimated. But we must not forget that the murders, the loss of property, the daily violence against those who survived the genocide – the Turks call them “Remnants of the Sword” (Kilic Artiklari) – and the violent confiscation of land, houses and violent abductions of Christian girls by Kurdish tribes only increased after 1915. All these factors were a major push factor for the Christian Mhalmoye, as with the other Christian peoples, to leave behind everything they owned in land, houses, businesses, shops, and the land of their fathers,  to flee to safer lands.