TWO EYE-WITNESSES ARE DESCRIBING THE SYRIAC GENOCIDE

For centuries the Syriac people has been living in Mesopotamia under cruelty and oppression. Those people, who have had to tolerate the worst kind of torture, have been helped neither by other states nor by other peoples. Having been attacked in various ways, our people has first been displaced and then subjected to acts aiming to destroy the Syriac people.
The powers that seek to destroy our people still have not given up their intention.
Those people who are spying for others or who work for their own interests are recently denying the Syriac genoside which occured between 1914 and 1918 and also called as "Seyfo" (the sword). Such remarks are injuring us deeply. Thousand of our people suffered the genoside. Even the pregnant women, children, the sick and the old were killed brutally.
Many eye-witnesses who recall the Syriac genoside are still alive today. Following is the dreadful events which were witnessed by two of the above mentioned people:
1. Danho from Deyr Salib village is telling:
'In 1915, the then chief of Deyr Salib village, Alike Sevgan had promised that the Syriac people from Deyr Salib village would not be killed if they return to their village. Deyr Salib people went back to the village since they had believed Sevgan's word. As soon as they had returned, Sevgan sent them to the homes of Kurdish families as 'visitors' in groups of four or five. Nevertheless, this bloodthirsty murderer had set up a plan with the Kurdish villagers beforehand. In the evening of the same day he gave the Kurds a signal to "attack" by firing his gun. The Kurds using guns, sticks and stones attacked the innocent Syriac peole of Deyr Salib who had already been under captivity and killed 75 of them. Moreover, they threw the priest of Deyr Salib into the fire they had lit. As the priest was trying to run away from the flames, they brutally killed him with sticks and daggers.'
2. 90 year old Niso Mirza from Beth Ishok village is telling:
'In 1914 the Kurds gathered the Syriac people from Beth Ishok in Turabdin outside of the village and after they had strangled them all, they threw their dead bodies into the water wells of the village. Those wells still remain unopened. There are many wells full of our people's bones. I pray God that nobody would suffer such things.'
Those who deny the Syriac Genoside will take their parts as liars in history.
Josef BARGEVRO
(This article is quoted from July 2000, the 254th issue of "Bahro Suryoyo" magazine which is published in Sweden/Södertalje.)