Tell Ermen massacre

Tell Ermen massacre
Part of Rape during the Armenian genocide
Location of Tell Ermen (now Kızıltepe)
Location	Tell Ermen, Ottoman Empire
Date	1 July 1915
Target	Armenian Christians
Deaths	200+ killed
Victims	70 women raped
Perpetrators	Kurdish tribesmen and locals
Motive	Kurdish nationalism, Anti-Armenian sentiment, Anti-Christian sentiment

The Tell Ermen massacre was the mass killing of the Armenian population of the village of Tell Ermen, of the Ottoman Empire, on 1 July 1915, during the Armenian genocide. The massacre was perpetrated by Kurdish tribesmen alongside local militia forces, with involvement from the village headman Derwis Bey. ^{[1] [2] [3]}

On that day, Armenian villagers had taken refuge in the village church. The attackers launched a brutal assault, killing indiscriminately. Victims were decapitated, hacked apart with axes, or mutilated. ^[1]

70 Armenian women were raped inside the church before being killed. After the massacre, Kurdish women entered the church and stabbed to death any survivors. ^[4] Bodies were disposed of by being thrown into wells or burned to ashes. ^{[1] [4]}

German military observers visited Tell Ermen weeks later. Major von Mikusch reported seeing about 200 corpses and noted that militia members spoke of the massacre "beaming with joy". ^[5] Vice-Consul Holstein noted only 15–20 survivors managed to flee. German naval officers observed severed children's hands and women's hair among the remains. Rafael de Nogales described mutilated corpses barely covered with stones, with some remains gnawed by hyenas. ^{[1] [4] [5]}

The Armenian population of Tell Ermen was effectively annihilated. The village was later repopulated with Circassians and Chechens. ^{[6] [7]}

The victims' Armenian identity is confirmed in multiple German and Western diplomatic accounts, as well as in historian Hilmar Kaiser's research on genocide survivors in Aleppo. ^[8]

See also

Kurdish recognition of the Armenian genocide

References

1. Uğur Ümit Üngör, The Making of Modern Turkey: Nation and State in Eastern Anatolia, 1913–1950 (Oxford University Press, 2012), p. 90.
2. Uğur Ümit Üngör, Young Turk Social Engineering: Mass Violence and the Nation State in Eastern Turkey, 1913–1950 (2009), p. 140.
3. Seton-Williams, Veronica (2013). Britain and the Arab States: An Outline of Anglo-Arab Relations, 1839-1951. Routledge. p. 21. Retrieved 6 June 2025.
4. David Gaunt et al., Let Them Not Return: Sayfo – The Genocide Against the Assyrian, Syriac, and Chaldean Christians in the Ottoman Empire (Berghahn Books, 2017), p. 39.
5. Wolfgang Gust, ed., The Armenian Genocide: Evidence from the German Foreign Office Archives, 1915–1916, p. 19.
6. Uğur Ümit Üngör and Mehmet Polatel, Confiscation and Destruction: The Young Turk Seizure of Armenian Property (Continuum, 2011), p. 69.
7. Seton-Williams, Veronica (2013). Britain and the Arab States: An Outline of Anglo-Arab Relations, 1839-1951. Routledge. p. 21. Retrieved 6 June 2025.
8. Hilmar Kaiser, At the Crossroads of Der Zor: Death, Survival, and Humanitarian Resistance in Aleppo, 1915–1917 (2001), p. 85.