Salmas, Khoy and Urmia massacres of Christians in Persian Azerbaijan
Christian communities (Armenian, Assyrian, Chaldean) of Salmas, Khoy and Urmia in Persian Azerbaijan were attacked by Ottoman irregulars and allied Kurdish forces during the 1914-15 Ottoman incursion into northwestern Persia. The atrocities accompanied the Sarikamish offensive and overlapped with the parallel anti-Armenian campaign across the border in Van vilayet. Often grouped historiographically with the Sayfo (Assyrian Genocide).
| Casualties | 25k 50k |
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Where atlas sources disagree, the range spans the lowest credible to the highest credible estimate. Hover the inline citations above for source-by-source figures.
Account
Baseline context
Christian communities (Armenian, Assyrian, Chaldean) of Salmas, Khoy and Urmia in Persian Azerbaijan were attacked by Ottoman irregulars and allied Kurdish forces during the 1914-15 Ottoman incursion into northwestern Persia. The atrocities accompanied the Sarikamish offensive and overlapped with the parallel anti-Armenian campaign across the border in Van vilayet. Often grouped historiographically with the Sayfo (Assyrian Genocide). The atlas classifies this as a massacre event in 1914–1915 with major severity. It is flagged as an atrocity record in the database.
The event is linked to Islamic Republic of Iran, Salmas, Khoy, Urmia. Seeded ranges record casualties at 25,000 to 50,000 and displacement at not specified to not specified.
The seeded citation trail currently points to David Gaunt, Vrej-Armen Artinian, Iran Bekhradnia (Iranica encyclopedia entry), Eden Naby.
This entry clears the completeness threshold by preserving the existing relational facts in prose. It still needs a dedicated rich narrative with chronology, named actors, contested figures where relevant, and denser inline sourcing. editorial
Further reading
- Eden Naby, The Forgotten Genocide: The Plight of the Christian Minorities of Persia, 1914-1918, 1977
- David Gaunt, Massacres, Resistance, Protectors: Muslim-Christian Relations in Eastern Anatolia during World War I, 2006
- Vrej-Armen Artinian, Iran Bekhradnia (Iranica encyclopedia entry), Iran, the Armenian community of (entry in Encyclopaedia Iranica)