Assyrians, Kurds, and Ottomans: Intercommunal Relations on the Pe ...

4. The Scene of the Tekhoma Massacre and the Fate of the Captives

In November 1846, while all the heads of the tribes were assembled at a meeting with their followers, the news came that the Kurds were invading the district. Shortly after, a messenger from Bedr Khan arrived and submitted his demands, with which the inhabitants would have to comply if they wished to avoid the massacre: every person from the district—male and female, adult and children—must pay twenty-five piastres; all the inhabitants must surrender their weapons; and they must hand over all their possessions and wealth.

The people’s past experience had taught them to not trust Bedr Khan’s word—and anyhow, they could not afford these demands. Meanwhile the Kurdish agha of Chal sent a messenger to Tekhoma offering to protect the women and children, but he betrayed the Assyrians: he sent word to Bedr Khan informing him of the route that the refugees would follow to get from Tekhoma to Chal. Bedr Khan’s commander-in-chief, the notorious Zenal Beg, cut the refugees off and surrounded them; when they arrived at the spot where the Kurdish fighters were waiting, a wholesale slaughter ensued. All the women and children were slain except two young girls who pretended to be dead and managed to escape at night to tell the tale.⁸

5. Tekhoma: The Last Assyrian Independent Province

Bedr Khan Beg now issued orders not to spare any survivor or take any captives, whether men, women, children, or elderly. He had learned from his previous experience; this time, he decided not to take slaves whom foreign consuls would then require the government to liberate. Accordingly, he treated every Christian in the province as a target to be eliminated; the buildings were to be levelled to the ground, and the inhabitants slaughtered.⁹