Assyrian genocide

The Assyrian genocide (also known as Sayfo or Seyfo, ("Sword")) Syriac: ܩܛܠܥܡܐ ܣܘܪܝܝܐ‎ or ܣܝܦܐ) refers to the mass slaughter of the Assyrian population of the Ottoman Empire and those in neighbouring Persia (by Ottoman troops) during the First World War, in conjunction with the Armenian and Greek genocides.

The Assyrian civilian population of upper Mesopotamia (the Tur Abdin region, the Hakkâri, Van, and Siirt provinces of present-day southeastern Turkey, and the Urmia region of northwestern Iran) was forcibly relocated and massacred by the Muslim Ottoman (Turkish) army, together with other armed and allied Muslim peoples, including Kurds, Chechens and Circassians, between 1914 and 1920, with further attacks on unarmed fleeing civilians conducted by local Arab militias.

The Assyrian genocide took place in the same context as the Armenian and Greek genocides. Since the Assyrian 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, who have classified the genocide as a systematic campaign by the Young Turk government. Other scholars, such as Hilmar Kaiser, Donald Bloxham and Taner Akçam have differing opinions with regards to the extent of governmental involvement and systematic nature of the genocide, asserting a less systematic policy and different treatment in comparison to the Armenians.