Special Issue 5, Winter 2011

Kurdish troops of the Ottoman Army massacred a population of 3500 Assyrians.

Editorial Note: While current academic conventions do not sanction use of Wikipedia as a source-reference in academic writing, the following Wikipedia article provides a deeply touching description of a massacre by a survivor, Reverend John Eshoo, included as an oral history. It can also be read as a vivid example of how many genocidal murders in our world are organized systematically and with a deep sadistic joy.
Early 1918, District of Khoi, Iran:

“You have undoubtedly heard of the Assyrian massacre of Khoi, but I am certain you do not know the details.

“These Assyrians 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.

“At the same time, the Assyrians, who were residing in the suburb of the city, were brought together and driven into the spacious courtyard of a house […] The Assyrian 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 marched like lambs to their slaughter, and they opened not their mouth, save by sayings “Lord, into thy hands we commit our spirits. […]

“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.

“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.

“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 totaled 2,770 men, women and children.”

Source: Wikipedia: Assyrian Genocide.  Retrieved September 1, 2010.