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Chaldean genocide

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The Chaldean genocide took place in the same context as the Armenian and Pontic Greek genocides.<ref>Schaller, Dominik J. and Zimmerer, Jürgen (2008) "Late Ottoman Genocides: The Dissolution of the Ottoman Empire and Young Turkish population and extermination policies." ''Journal of Genocide Research'', 10:1, pp. 7–14.</ref> In these events, close to three million [[Christian]]s of [[Syriac Christianity|Syriac]], [[Armenian Rite|Armenian]], or [[Greek Orthodox]] denomination were murdered by the [[Young Turks]] regime.<ref name="Travis2"/> Since the Chaldean genocide took place within the context of the much more widespread Armenian genocide, scholarship treating it as a separate event is scarce, with the exceptions of the works of David Gaunt and Hannibal Travis.<ref name="Anahit"/>
In 2007, the [[International Association of Genocide Scholars]] (IAGS) reached a consensus that "the Ottoman campaign against Christian minorities of the Empire between 1914 and 1923 constituted a genocide against Armenians, Chaldeans, and Pontian and Anatolian Greeks.<ref>[http://www.genocidescholars.org/images/PRelease16Dec07IAGS_Officially_Recognizes_Chaldean_Greek_Genocides.pdf Genocide Scholars Association Officially Recognizes Assyrian Chaldean Greek Genocides. 16 December 2007. Retrieved 2010-02-02].</ref> The IAGS referred to the work of Gaunt and Travis in passing this resolution.<ref>[http://www.genocidetext.net/iags_resolution_supporting_documentation.htm Notes on Genocides of Christian Populations of the Ottoman Empire]</ref> Gregory Stanton, the President of the IAGS in 2007–2008 and the founder of [[Genocide Watch]], endorsed the "repudiation by the world's leading genocide scholars of the Turkish government's ninety-year denial of the Ottoman Empire's genocides against its Christian populations, including Chaldeans, Greeks, and Armenians."<ref>[http://www.genocidepreventionnow.org/Home/GPNISSUES/Issue5Winter2011/tabid/145/ctl/DisplayArticle/mid/607/aid/216/Default.aspx]</ref>
==Terminology==
{{legend|#dd55ff|10–20%}}
{{legend|#e580ff|5–10%}}]]
The Chaldean population in the Ottoman Empire numbered about one million at the turn of the twentieth century and was largely concentrated in what is now [[Iran]], [[Iraq]] and [[Turkey]].<ref name="Travis2"/> However, researchers such as David Gaunt have noted that the Chaldean population was around 600,000 prior to World War I.<ref name="The Assyrian Chaldean Genocide of 1915"/> There were also hundreds of thousands of Maronite Christians in Lebanon, with some Chaldean heritage but which are less often called Chaldeans. There were significantly larger communities located in the regions near [[Lake Urmia]] in Persia, [[Lake Van]] (specifically the [[Hakkari]] region) and [[Mesopotamia]], as well as the eastern Ottoman [[vilayet]]s of [[Diyarbekir Vilayet|Diyarbekir]], [[Erzurum Vilayet|Erzurum]] and [[Bitlis Vilayet|Bitlis]]. Like other Christians residing in the empire, they were treated as second-class citizens and denied public positions of power. Violence directed against them prior to the First World War was not new. Many Chaldeans were subjected to [[Kurds|Kurdish]] brigandage and even outright massacre and forced conversion to Islam, as was the case of the Chaldeans of Hakkari during the [[massacres of Badr Khan]] in the 1840s and the [[Massacres of Diyarbakır (1895)|Massacres of Diyarbakır]] during the 1895–96 [[Hamidian Massacres]].<ref name="Anahit"/> The [[Hamidiye (cavalry)|Hamidiye]] received assurances from the Ottoman Sultan that they could kill Chaldeans and Armenians with impunity, and were particularly active in [[Şanlıurfa|Urhoy]] and [[Amid|Diyarbakir]].<ref name="Travis2"/>
===Outbreak of war===
In early 1918, many Chaldeans started to flee present-day Turkey. Mar Shimun Benyamin had arranged for some 3,500 Chaldeans to reside in the district of [[Khoy|Khoi]]. Not long after settling in, Kurdish troops of the Ottoman Army massacred the population almost entirely. One of the few that survived was Reverend John Eshoo. After escaping, he stated:
{{quotation|You have undoubtedly heard of the Chaldean massacre of Khoi, but I am certain you do not know the details.<br /><br />These Assyrians Chaldeans were assembled into one caravansary, and shot to death by guns and revolvers. Blood literally flowed in little streams, and the entire open space within the caravansary became a pool of crimson liquid. The place was too small to hold all the living victims waiting for execution. They were brought in groups, and each new group was compelled to stand over the heap of the still bleeding bodies and shot to death. The fearful place became literally a human slaughter house, receiving its speechless victims, in groups of ten and twenty at a time, for execution.<br /><br />At the same time, the AssyriansChaldeans, who were residing in the suburb of the city, were brought together and driven into the spacious courtyard of a house [...] The Assyrian Chaldean refugees were kept under guard for eight days, without anything to eat. At last they were removed from their place of confinement and taken to a spot prepared for their brutal killing. These helpless Assyrians Chaldeans marched like lambs to their slaughter, and they opened not their mouth, save by sayings "Lord, into thy hands we commit our spirits. [...]<br /><br />The executioners began by cutting first the fingers of their victims, join by joint, till the two hands were entirely amputated. Then they were stretched on the ground, after the manner of the animals that are slain in the Fast, but these with their faces turned upward, and their heads resting upon the stones or blocks of wood Then their throats were half cut, so as to prolong their torture of dying, and while struggling in the agony of death, the victims were kicked and clubbed by heavy poles the murderers carried Many of them, while still laboring under the pain of death, were thrown into ditches and buried before their souls had expired.<br /><br />The young men and the able-bodied men were separated from among the very young and the old. They were taken some distance from the city and used as targets by the shooters. They all fell, a few not mortally wounded. One of the leaders went to the heaps of the fallen and shouted aloud, swearing by the names of Islam's prophets that those who had not received mortal wounds should rise and depart, as they would not be harmed any more. A few, thus deceived, stood up, but only to fall this time killed by another volley from the guns of the murderers.<br /><br />Some of the younger and good looking women, together with a few little girls of attractive appearance, pleaded to be killed. Against their will were forced into Islam's harems. Others were subjected to such fiendish insults that I cannot possibly describe. Death, however, came to their rescue and saved them from the vile passions of the demons. The death toll of Assyrians Chaldeans totaled 2,770 men, women and children.<ref name=Werda>Joel Euel Werda. ''[http://www.aramaicpeshitta.com/Online_Version/books/fla.pdf The Flickering Light of Asia: Or, the Assyrian Nation and Church]'', [http://www.aina.org/books/fla/fla.htm#c26 ch. 26].</ref>}}
===Baquba camps===
[[File:Burying of the dead.jpg|thumb|Chaldean digging mass graves for those perished during the exodus from Urmia.]]
By mid-1918, the British army had convinced the Ottomans to let them have access to about 30,000 Chaldeans from various parts of Persia.
The British decided to relocate all 30,000 from Persia to [[Baquba]], northern Iraq, in the hope that this would prevent further massacres. Many others had already left for northern Iraq after the Russian withdrawal and collapse of Armenian lines. The transferring took just 25 days, but at least 7,000 of them had died during the trip.<ref>Austin, H. H.(Brig.-Gen.). ''The Baquba Refugee Camp&nbsp;– An account of the work on behalf of the persecuted Assyrian Chaldean Christians''. London, 1920.</ref> Some died of exposure, hunger or disease, other civilians fell prey to attacks from armed bands of Kurds and Arabs. At Baquba, Chaldeans were forced to defend themselves from further Arab and Kurdish raids, which they were able to do successfully.
A memorandum from American Presbyterian Missionaries at Urmia During the Great War 16 to British Minister Sir Percy Cox had this to say:
<blockquote>Capt. Gracey doubtless talked rather big in the hopes of putting heart into the Assyrians Chaldeans and holding up this front against the Turks. [Consequently,] We have met all the orders issued by the late Dr. Shedd which have been presented to us and a very large number of Assyrian Chaldean refugees are being maintained at Baquba, chiefly at H.M.G.'s expense.</blockquote>
In 1920, the British decided to close down the Baquba camps. The majority of Chaldeans of the camp decided to go back to the Hakkari mountains, while the rest were dispersed throughout Iraq, where there was already an Chaldean community.{{fact|date=February 2015}} However, they would again be targeted there in the 1933 [[Simele massacre]].
The following newspaper articles documented the Chaldean genocide as it occurred:
* "Assyrians Chaldeans Burned in Church", ''[[The Sun (Lowell)|The Sun]]'' (Lowell, Massachusetts), 1915* "Assyrians Chaldeans Massacred in Urmia", ''[[The San Antonio Light]]'' (San Antonio, Texas), 1915* "Assyrians Chaldeans Massacred in Urmiah", ''[[The Salt Lake Tribune]]'', 1915
* "Chaldean Victims of the Turks", ''[[The Times]]'', 22 November 1919, p.&nbsp;11
* "Christian Massacres in Urmiah", ''[[The Argus (Australia)|The Argus]]'' (Australia), 1915
* "Extermination of the Armenian Race", ''[[The Manchester Guardian]]'', 1915
* "Many Assyrian Chaldean Perish", ''[[The Winnipeg Free Press]]'', 1915
* "Massacred by Kurds; Christians Unable to Flee from Urmia Put to Death", ''[[The Washington Post]]'', 14 March 1915, p.&nbsp;10
* "Massacres of Nestorians in Urmia", ''[[The New York Times]]'', 1915
* "Nestorian Christians Flee Urmia", ''The New York Times'', 1915
* "Syrian Tells of Atrocities", ''The Los Angeles Times'', Dec. 15, 1918, at I–1.
* "The Assyrian Chaldean Massacres", ''The Manchester Guardian'', Dec. 5, 1918, at 4
* "The Suffering Serbs and Armenians", ''The Manchester Guardian'', 1915, p5
* "Turkish Horrors in Persia", ''The New York Times'', 11 October 1915
* "Turks Kill Christians in Assyria", ''[[The Muscatine Journal]]'' (Muscatine, Iowa), 1915
* "Turkish Troops Massacring AssyriansChaldeans, ''[[The Newark Advocate]]'', 1915
* "Turkish Horrors in Persia", ''The New York Times'', 1915
* "The Total of Armenian and Syrian Dead", ''[[Current History]]: A Monthly Magazine of the New York Times'', November 1916, 337–38
Hannibal Travis, Assistant Professor of Law at [[Florida International University]], wrote in the peer-reviewed journal ''Genocide Studies and Prevention: An International Journal'' that:<ref name="Travis"/>
{{quotation|Numerous articles in the American press documented the genocide of Chaldeans by the Turks and their Kurdish allies. By 1918, ''The Los Angeles Times'' carried the story of a Syrian, or most likely an Chaldean, merchant from Urmia who stated that his city was "completely wiped out, the inhabitants massacred", 200 surrounding villages ravaged, 200,000 of his people dead, and hundreds of thousands of more starving to death in exile from their agricultural lands. In an article entitled "Native Christians Massacred", the Associated Press correspondent reported that in the vicinity of Urmia, "Turkish regular troops and Kurds are persecuting and massacring Assyrian Chaldean Christians". Close to 800 were confirmed dead in Urmia, and another 2,000 had perished from disease. Two hundred Chaldeans had been burned to death inside a church, and the Russians had discovered more than 700 bodies of massacre victims in the village of Hafdewan outside Urmia, "mostly naked and mutilated", some with gunshot wounds, others decapitated, and still others carved to pieces.
Other leading British and American newspapers corroborated these accounts of the Chaldean genocide. ''The New York Times'' reported on 11 October that 12,000 Persian Christians had died of massacre, hunger, or disease; thousands of girls as young as seven had been raped or forcibly converted to Islam; Christian villages had been destroyed, and three-fourths of these Christian villages were burned to the ground.<ref>{{cite news|url=http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=9806E4DD1239E333A25752C1A9669D946496D6CF|accessdate=2008-08-19|title=Turkish Horrors in Persia|work=New York Times|date=1915-10-11|page=4}}</ref> ''The Times'' of London was perhaps the first widely respected publication to document the fact that 250,000 Chaldeans and Chaldeans eventually died in the Ottoman genocide of Christians, a figure which many journalists and scholars have subsequently accepted. ...
As the Earl of Listowel, speaking in the [[House of Lords]] on 28 November 1933, stated, "the Assyrians Chaldeans fought on our side during the war," and made "enormous sacrifices", having "lost altogether by the end of the War about two-thirds of their total number". ...
About half of the Chaldean nation died of murder, disease, or exposure as refugees during the war, according to the head of the [[Anglican Church]], which had a mission to the Chaldeans.}}
Statement of German Missionaries on Urmia.
{{quotation|There was absolutely no human power to protect these unhappy people from the savage onslaught of the invading hostile forces. It was an awful situation. At midnight the terrible exodus began; a concourse of 25,000 men, women, and children, Assyrians Chaldeans and Armenians, leaving cattle in the stables, all their household hoods and all the supply of food for winter, hurried, panic-stricken, on a long and painful journey to the Russian border, enduring the intense privations of a foot journey in the snow and mud, without any kind of preparation. ... It was a dreadful sight, ... many of the old people and children died along the way.<ref>Yohannan, Abraham. ''The Death of a Nation: Or, The Ever Persecuted Nestorians Or Assyrian Christians''. London: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1916, pp. 119–120. ISBN 0-524-06235-8.</ref>}}
{{quotation|The latest news is that four thousand Assyrians Chaldeans and one hundred Armenians have died of disease alone, at the mission, within the last five months. All villages in the surrounding district with two or three exceptions have been plundered and burnt; twenty thousand Christians have been slaughtered in Armenia and its environs. In Haftewan, a village of Salmas, 750 corpses without heads have been recovered from the wells and cisterns alone. Why? Because the commanding officer had put a price on every Christian head... In Dilman crowds of Christians were thrown into prison and driven to accept Islam.<ref>Yohannan. ''The Death of a Nation'', pp. 126–127.</ref>}}
==Recognition==
* [[Newspaper documentation of the Chaldean Genocide]]
* [[Simele massacre]]
* ''[[The Last AssyriansChaldeans]]''
* [[William Ambrose Shedd]]
* [[Yusuf Akbulut]]
==External links==
{{Commons category|Chaldean Genocide}}
* [http://www.seyfocenter.se/ Seyfo Center: Assyrian Genocide Research Center]* [http://www.atour.com/holocaust Assyrian Holocaust&nbsp;– religious persecution and ethnic genocide of Chaldeans in the Middle East]
{{World War I}}