The Zilan massacre is the second largest massacre of the Kemalist dictatorship against Kurds. On July 13, 1930, this massacre was put into effect against the uprisings of Agri. We commemorate the martyrs of Zilan (in the Erciş district of Van), where all the local people were slaughtered brutally (15 thousand according to official figures, and 47 thousand according to the people) from the unborn baby to the oldest person.
Witness Mirza: “They cut the bellies of pregnant women”
During the Zilan Massacre, I was a soldier in Diyarbakır. I was among the military units that were shipped from Diyarbakır to the region. When we arrived in the region, the massacre was newly made. We were tasked with finding those who escaped or were hidden. We searched for them in the burned village of Cakırbey, looking for people who had survived among the ruins of the previously murdered and burned village. As a result of the search, we found two people. They took both of them and brought them to the commander. We completed the search activity and got there. One of them was an 80-year-old man. The other was a pregnant woman, whose birth was apparently close.
The commander, kicked the old man a couple of times and said: “This guy’s already dead”. The two soldiers held by the trembling hands of the poor woman shaking with the terror she had seen before. The commander said “[the woman] shouted at you inside, dig out this woman’s belly and take out her bastard”. He called on the soldiers a couple of times, but they did not move. Thereupon, it was announced that the person who will perform this job would have 40 days of compensation. A soldier came out voluntarily. He helped cut the poor woman’s stomach with a bayonet whilst she was being held from both arms. She died right away. The child lived.
The commander asked if the child was a boy or a girl. The soldier replied that the child was a boy, upon which the commander said: “I knew the bastard would be a boy”. The soldier sliced the baby too, killing him.
Our house was in Hevirzong village at that time. Most of our relatives in the village of Hasanabdal had been killed. My uncles, including my grandfather. But they did not interfere with our village. My father goes to Gibraltar, where the massacre took place at night to help our relatives, at least bury the dead. According to the story; Since dogs are accustomed to human flesh, they also attack. They could barely enter the field. When they entered the field, they met hundreds of corpses, most of them unrecognizable. The massacres were buried secretly and collectively without anyone seeing at night. It is still possible to come across human bones despite them being there for the longest period of time.”
Witness Ahmet Yildiz: “The soldiers raped the corpses of young girls and women”
“Asê Davuda was full of corpses, in the heat of August, the corpses were swollen and smelled. The soldiers raped the bodies of young girls and women: Aşê Davuda, where the Erciş girls’ boarding primary school is located, on the Van-Erciş road. One of the biggest massacres was carried out there. I was back then. I used to carry supplies to the soldiers. Several times, I took the supplies to the soldiers who had camped in Aşê Davuda; I saw it with my own eyes. Their bodies were piled up in towers. I will never forget, the soldiers entered the funerals and raped the bodies of beautiful women and girls.”
Witness Kakil Erdem: “Peoples heads were skinned”
“The soldiers were digging out the bellies of pregnant women. They killed pregnant women and took their children out of their bellies. They cut people in front of my eyes. They skinned the heads of three of my relatives in front of me. I watched them they kill two brothers by beating them with wood. ”
Stating that he fled to the mountains at the beginning of the massacre and watched what was happening from his hiding place, Erdem said: “After the soldiers left, we returned to the village. They killed 35 of my relatives. They cut a lot of people in front of me. My eldest brother is also alive, and he has seen these events. Erdem told that Ismet Inonu ordered the massacre and said, ım I could never forget that massacre. They killed those who were captured. Most of those who died in this massacre were people who fought in the War of Independence.”
Witness: A Soldier
“We tied everyone up and raked them. A total of 44 villages were set on fire and about 47,000 people were tied to each other and brutally massacred in the Ceme Gürceme valley. They threw everyone, including women, children, and babies, the people of all villages in the region, thousands of people into the Zilan creek. They surrounded them with machine guns. Holding the machine guns were us. Our hands on the trigger, the barrels were pointed to the people. We had the privates lined up behind us. They had their hands on the trigger, pointing the barrels at us. Behind them, the third-row officers were waiting with their bullets ready in their pistols.
If we didn’t shoot, the privates would shoot us. If they didn’t shoot us, the officers would shoot them and us. We pressed the trigger. Thousands of bullets vomited fire over the people in the creek. The terrible screams of women, children, old, young men surrounded the stream. After a while, the screams turned into moans. and then the voices were cut off.
In addition to the old and young men, the bodies of thousands of women, children and babies in the arson were left in a pool of blood. They were fed to the wolves and birds. After a while the corpses smelled, they were left to rot.”
Witness Tayfune Zilan: “I hid under the bodies and I survived”
“The soldiers of Captain Derviş Bey raided 7 villages in the Zilan Creek and started to crawl in case we were going to rebel. They started killing everyone. Within a short time, the mess was filled with corpses. So I got down as I escaped. I crawled under the bodies. They thought I was dead. They stacked all the bodies on top of each other, and I fell under them. I reappeared after soldiers had gone. But I was the only one in my family who survived. My father, my mother and all my relatives had been killed. Very few people survived. The survivors, like me, have lost their sanity.”
Witness Abdulkadir Celebi: “the corpses were piled onto each other”
“When the soldiers approached the village, everyone fled. Unable to escape. My father ran away with me and my mom. Bonuzlu, Burhan, Kerx, Milk, Kunduk, Sarko, Gomik, Şorık, Milk gathered all of these villagers. My father said they gathered Satanava. They brought all the captives here to the estate. We took refuge in a ditch far from the village of Boynuzlu. All the villagers gathered were taken to the Property and they remembered that the gunshots came” said Çelebi, more than 100 people had survived under the funerals. Some were injured, some were not.
The two children, our neighbors, hid under the corpses. And there was Rabia, she had a baby in her arms, and she ran away. My mother said, “Rabia daughter, where are you coming from?” She said she came out from under the corpses and the boy was asleep. Turns out the boy was dead. In order to keep the child from crying, in fear that the soldiers might appear, she had kept her breast in the mouth of the child, suffocating him. I remember Rabia and her baby in her arms. When the soldiers went, my father went to defend the corpses. I saw corpses piling up on top of each other. I have that sight right in front of me. I have never forgotten..”
Witness Mirze Akmaz: “They used both bullets and bayonets.”
He was 8 years old when the Zilan massacre happened. Akmaz explains his experiences as follows; “They gathered all the villagers. The soldiers surrounded us. Derviş Bey was riding his horse. They made us pass to the other side of the bridge and join with the village of Doğanci. They brought us to the island of Xeybi and gathered them together. Derviş Bey shook his hand and bullets rained on us. The cries of the bullets surrounded us. When the sounds stopped, the gunfire was silenced. They killed the survivors with bayonets.
They searched several times in a row. So I came out of my mother’s and father’s lap as they had both covered me. Blood was dripping from my clothes. I never forget it. ”
In addition to his mother and father and 2 older sisters, his uncle’s sister-in-law and 9 cousins were murdered, Akmaz said.
Witness Mela Yildiz: “They even killed animals”
“The sky was red and the clouds were crying. Tears were flaming. Every living creature took its share from this apocalypse. The Kurds were disguised as sheep, and flocks of sheep were bombed. The sheep falling into the middle of the bomb is thrown into the sky first; then they fell to the ground.”
Witness Haci Sebab Kandemir: “Crops burned, concrete poured into water wells.”
“More than 15,000 women, children and the elderly were tied to each other and were exposed to mitral fever. Children in the bellies of pregnant women were bayoneted. Crops were burned, concrete poured into water wells.”
Witness Heci Heyder Ozer: “People’s skulls were breaking away from their bodies and flying into the air ”
“We all sat down. A few daughters were playing quicksand, some kids were playing handkerchiefs, and they were all jolly. They installed xefif machine guns on the hills and turned their direction to us… People’s skulls were flying away from their bodies and flying into the air, then pieces of meat fell from the sky like rain. After the screams ceased, the machine guns stopped. The soldier hit the mountain and went away. ”
Witness Resit Akmaz
“800, maybe more than 1000. They passed us one by one across the wooden bridge. I will never forget that a 10-year-old boy was walking by our side to play. When we came to the Adaxeybê valley, suddenly a voice rose: “Fire at large!” It rained bullets on us. Screams, Allahu Akbar, word-martyrs, cries, moaning, baby voices, children’s cries were mixed together. ”
Witness Haci Sebab Kandemir: “they were burning the corpses”
“From the Seyid mosque to the cemetery, both sides of the road were filled with human bodies. It was early summer. Their blood formed a black layer on the soil; my mother closed my eyes again. In order not to be afraid… There is a large mosque in Erciş, they used it as a prison. The soldiers brought the people of Gelîyê Zilan during the day and closed them in this mosque. And in the evening, they took the people away. They were taking them to Davuda and Aşê and killing them. They were killing them on the roads to Heyderbeg. They were killed on the roads to Örene (Wêrane). They were killed on the road to Yekmal. In this way, they killed 200 people a day without exaggeration. When the captive convoys were brought to Ercis, I and my family were in it. When we arrived in the köyrşat village, some houses were burned. They were still on fire. the soldiers were burning the bodies.”
