Armenian genocide remembered as Assyrians fight for acknowledgement of their plight
Overshadowed by the Armenian genocide that cost the lives of some 1,5 million people, and which is commemorated on 24 April, the experience of other minorities that were targeted by the Ottoman Empire is often forgotten. Yet a smaller group, which was almost wiped out is now trying to gain recognition for its plight.
"A lady, a relative of mine, escaped with her two daughters. Soon after, they were recaptured, and the two girls were carried away to slavery. Their mother died," writes Yonan Shahbaz, a Persian Baptist minister in his harrowing, 1918 diary.
His is one of the rare eyewitness accounts of the genocide of Oriental Christians - Assyrians - by Ottoman and Kurdish troops in 1915 and the years that followed in Urmia in present-day Iran.
"A neighbor of mine was soaked in oil and burned. A minister, more than eighty years of age, had his legs and arms sawed off. Another minister was murdered in the most horrible and revolting manner while his wife was compelled to witness the foul deed from the roof of their home. She died from the shock a little later.
"My own home was looted, then burned. The intruders burned all of my books, my most valued treasure," Shahbaz added.
Protected by an American passport, he managed to escape the onslaught unleashed on Armenians, Assyrians (Oriental Catholics and Orthodox Christians as well as Nestorians and Protestants) and Pontic Greeks, whom the Turks, fighting WW1 at the side of the Germans, suspected of being disloyal to the Ottoman government.
He got out with his wife and one of his two children. The other one disappeared in the chaos and was never heard of again.
Read more on RFI English
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