“We were annihilated for the sake of building a state for the Turks”

Beritan Medusa - Comerd Sheikho / Qamishlo

April 24, 1915 was the day of the genocide of the Armenian people. On 24 April, 1915, the Ottoman Empire arrested 240 Armenian intellectuals in Istanbul (Constantinople), killing some of them and exiling the other part out of the country. The massacre, which began on April 24, continued with physical extermination until the autumn of 1916, while deportation and exile continued until 1923. The result was the killing of one and a half million Armenians, and hundreds of thousands of them were deported to Syrian territory and neighboring countries. Before 1915, the Ottoman Empire committed two more massacres against the Armenian people. The first massacre began in 1894, and resulted in the death of at least 80,000 Armenians and the exile of hundreds more. As a continuation of the massacre initiated by the Ottoman Empire in 1905, many Armenians were killed in Adana. The aim; however, was not only to exterminate the Armenian people, on 24 April 1915, the Ottoman Empire, under the name Kılıç 'Seyfo'(move of a dagger), killed and exiled some 300,000 Assyrians and Assyrians. The goal was to build an Islamic state and the first victim was the Armenians, Syriacs and Assyrians, and then the Turkish Islamic dagger was directed to the neck of the Kurds.

One whose family members were killed and exiled to Syria in the 1894 genocide, the 1915 genocide and 65-year-old Sahakiyan. The story of the tragic Sahakiyan family is a point of the sea of ​​brutal crimes of the Ottoman Empire. Sahakiyan, who now lives in Qamishlo city, spoke to ANHA about what happened with his family.

"They treated my father in a camp for the wounded"

Prior to 1894, Werjan’s grandfather moved from Sason to Aleppo to work, where he opened a shop in Aleppo and went to visit his family in Sason once every 6 months. After the annihilation of 1894, he was prevented from going to Sason since 1895, and continued until 1915. His family, which together with the father of two women, Dekran Sahakiyan, kept seven of his sons with their families in Sason until the massacre of 1915. "After my grandfather was exiled, in 1915 the Ottoman Empire stormed the family home in Sason, where my father and my uncles lived," he said, "and all my family was killed, my seven uncles were slaughtered with their wives and children and all our relatives were killed. Despite my wounds, my father managed to reach the people of Sason who were leaving, and they took my father to a wounded camp in Aleppo to receive treatment, and at the time my father was 13 to 14 years old. Having recovered his wounds, my father worked in the railway line."

"I did not want to get away from my family again"

After the French occupation of Syria, a railway between Aleppo and Qamishlo was established, and the father of Sahakiyan moved to Qamishlo where he married and gave birth to two children, one of them and the two Sahakiyan. After he reached the age of 16, he went to Lebanon and studied in the Department of Techniques and specialized in the field of watchmaking. "I went from Lebanon to America, but my family was the most important thing I had, so I went back to it," said Sahakiyan, who lost his family in the massacre, unable to stay away from his father, the only survivor of the family, so he returned to his home in Qamishlo. "All my relatives were killed and I wanted to return to live with my father, my mother and my brother."

"We did not enjoy a beautiful day"

"The people of the Ottoman Empire wanted to build a Turkish state and they regarded other nationalities as a danger to them," Sahakiyan said. We did not oppose anyone. "

"Kurds, Arabs and Armenians all live together lovingly"

Shahakiyan has four children, but his sons and wife live in America. Sahakiyan does not want to leave his father's home. When he works in his shop, he enjoys his neighbors’ companionship be it Kurds or Arabs, they spend time together. "I have opened a shop for watches in the market since 40 years, I have Kurdish and Arab neighbors, and these people have provided me with a lot of help and support. Maybe we are different in religion or nationalism, but that does not mean that people become the most bitter enemies," he said, most importantly of humanity’s.”

J.O

ANHA