[200] free to practise the Christian religion. The few who still remain Mussulman seem to do so of their own free will and for reasons of self interest. The poverty however is so great that many Christian villages remain without any of the administrations of religion. The Christians in general are becoming the serfs of certain ‘strong’ Kurds. They appear to have about enough to eat and not to need relief just now, but a slight failure of crops would probably cause terrible distress, It is hard to doubt that the massacring and plundering were deliberately carried out by order of the acting Caimacam in 1895, and the whole policy of the Government, whether a deliberate conscious policy or not, is to encourage the powerful mischievous Kurds and to

[200v] depress the helpless villagers, especially the Christian ones. There has not been a possibility of a pretence that there ever was any seditious or political agitation or movement among the Christians of Sherwan.

     The following are statistics of the massacre compiled from the above report:

Sherwan caza - killed 151 men and 18 women; converted 10 whole villages and 15 families besides; remaining in the profession of Islam 3 whole villages (numbering in all 15 families) and four families besides.

     The figures include the whole of Sherwan.

The …. [unreadable] villages, both of Sherwan and Aroh seem to have little to complain of in regard to tax collecting except the usual irregularity and favouritism in the assessment and collection of tithes. The sale of the tithes to the villages themselves, which is common in Sherwan

201] seems to be a forced sale except in the cases of  ‘strong’ Kurdish villages, In spite of the Imperial Iradé, military exemption tax is being levied from the plundered Christians of Deh, and has down to the present year been levied from those of Kufra. The Christian villages having gone through massacre and plundering are now being ruined beyond hope of recovery by the extortionate and conscious practices of the financing Sheikhs, Beys and Aghas into whose hands the money lending business which was once Armenian, has now passed. Much land has been thrown out of cultivation and abandoned, much has passed into the hands of the Kurds. Whether the strengthening of the

[201v] latter element will prove to mean the ruin of the country and  the Government remains to be seen.

[199v] in prison for some days in Kufra until they consented to buy the tithes at the price which the government wanted. They said that most of the land of these two villages was in “miribalik’ mortgaged to Beys and strong Kurds. The village Kurds of Eroun valley took no part in the massacring and plundering, and even in some cases protected their Christian neighbours. Many Kurds wished to go to Constantinople in search of work, but the Government will not now allow any Kurds of the working clan to leave the Vilayet.

     On the whole, Sherwan has been for the last 3 years enjoying great tranquillity and the Christians who were terrorised into professing Islam are now I think entirely

Kufra → Şirvan subdistrict (centre of Şirvan district, Siirt province)

← back to sources 1891 - 1900

pages 199v - 201