ملف ٧٠٥/١٩١٦ الجزء ٢ "انتفاضة عربية: التقارير العربية؛ تقارير السير م. سايكس" [ظ‎‎٢‎٨] (٤٥٠/٥٤)

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village close by where the villagers gave us some cloth, which we v rap fed aiound
ourselves, but no food, so we returned to Dinar and begged, saymg we were xais an
knew no Kurdish. We were then given a meal, but were arrested by a police sergeant
as deserters and taken to his house, where he questioned us.^ We s<n we a ere wo
Arab brothers, and explained the absence of circumcision by saying that our parents had,
died when we were very small, ami we had been beggars since then, and theie oie a
never had the rite performed. The Kurds who had fed us insisted that we were poor
fakirs and net deserters, and the policeman let us go. The Kurds gave us a lot oi tood,
which we eked out for the next five days. We then saw a piquet of troops, and mop
up and recognised from the uniform that they were Russians, for I had seen some
liussian prisoners at Kas-el-Ain. We then gave ourselves up, saying we were^ English
sepoys, and a Kurd who was there knew a little Hindustani and ^ told the Russians w ho
we w r ere, and we were then sent to the Russian “ subadar (company or platoon
commander?), who gave us some clothes and shoes and a bath, and sent us back to a
higher commander, who sent us to Erzerum. Thence I was sent by motor and. train
to Tiflis, where a captain in the British service took us over. We stayed there five
days. Jog Ed went sick and was admitted to hospital, five Mussulmans and a Hindu
hospital follower joined us there, and we seven were then sent to Baku, thence by
steamer to Enzeli, and thence by motor car to Kazvin. I would like to return to Kut
and fight the Turks again, as they treated me very badly.
APPENDIX (B).
Armenian Massacres.
1. Report of an Eye-witness, Lieutenant llassan Maarouf.
In August 1915 in the suburbs of Mush I saw large numbers of dead bodies of
Armenians, men, women, and children lying in the fields. Some had been shot, some
stabbed and most of them had been horribly mutilated. The women were mostly naked
In the villages around Mush I saw old women and children wandering in the streets,
haggard and emaciated.
In the same month, in a camp outside Bitlis I saw collected about 500 women,
girls and children guarded by gendarmes. I asked the latter what was to become of
these people. They said that they were being deported but that they had orders to let
the Bauds deal with them on the way. The Bands had been organised by the Turkish
Government for the purpose of massacring the Armenians. Tney were formed by
Kurds, Turkish gendarmes, and criminals who had been specially set free.
On the river at Biths I saw quite a number of bodies of Armenians floating on the
water, and some washed up on the banks. The smell was pestilential and the' water
undrinkable.
In the same month of August in the country at a distance of about two hours from
Zaart, I saw the bodies of about 15,000 massacred Armenians. They were piled up on
top of each other in two ravines. The Armenian Bishop of Zaart was, at his own
request, taken to a cave near by and shot.
On my return from Zaart to Mush in a village of the suburbs of Mush over 500
Armenians, mostly women and children, were herded up in a stable and locked in. The
gendarmes threw flaming torches, through an opening in the ceiling. They were all
burnt alive. I did not go near, but I distinctly saw the flames and heard the'sereams of
the poor victims.
I heard from reliable persons- that women in the family way had their bodies cut
open and the child snatched out and thrown away.
At Mush the streets were strewn with bodies of Armenians. Every time an
Armenian ventured out of doors he was instantly killed.
Even men of great age, blind and invalids were not spared.
From Mush to Hinis, at short distances from each other, I saw niles of bodieq of
Armenians in the fields alongside the road.
Between Sherkes-Koi and Hinis I saw two ravines filled with corpses of Armenians
about 400 in each ravine, mostly men. Another ravine was filled with bodies of little
children,