At Cassarea, in the massacre of November 30th, Rev. Dr. Avedis Yeretzian, a pastor and physician, his wife, his eldest son and his brother-in-law were ruthlessly butchered by the Turks and thrown into the flames of their burning house. In another house a Protestant alone with his twelve year old daughter, the mother being absent, a Turk burst into the room where the father was, and killed him on his refusal to embrace the Mohammedan faith. He then went into the room where the girl, unaware of the affair, was sitting. He said to her: “Your father is dead because he would not embrace Islam, now I must make you a Mohammedan, then I shall take you to my home and you will be treated as my daughter. Are you willing?” Her answer was, “I believe in Jesus. He is my Saviour, and I love Him. I cannot do what you wish, even if you kill me.” He fell upon her in his fury and stabbed her in twelve different places. The house was plundered and burnt with the father’s corpse lying therein. The same evening, in another part of the town, a cart drove up to the house where the girl’s mother was staying. A neighbor, a kindly disposed Turk, entered and said: “I have brought you the body of your little daughter. You are a friend of mine, I could not leave it lying there. I am sorry this has happened.”
The British Vice-Consul, Mr. Fitzmaurice, who was sent to Urfa to make an investigation of the massacre, made the following report:
“On Saturday night (the 28th of December, 1895) crowds of Armenian men, women and children took refuge in their fine cathedral, capable of holding some eight thousand persons. They administered the sacrament, the last sacrament, as it proved to be, to eighteen hundred souls, recording the figure on one of the pillars of the church.
“Those remained in the cathedral overnight, and were joined on Sunday by several hundred more, who sought the protection of a building which they considered safe from the mob-violence of the Musulman even in his fanaticism. At least three thousand individuals were congregated in the building when the mob attacked it. They first fired in through the windows, then smashed in the iron door, and proceeded to massacre all those, the majority on the ground floor being men. Having thus disposed of the men, and having removed some of the young women, they rifled the church treasure, shrines, and ornaments to the extent of some four thousand pounds (Turkish—$17,600), destroying pictures and relics, mockingly calling on Christ now to prove Himself a greater prophet than Mohammed.
“A huge, partly stone, partly wooden, gallery, running round the upper portion of the cathedral, was packed with a shrieking and terrified mass of women, children and some men.
“Some of the intruders jumping on the raised altar platform, began picking off the latter with revolver shots, but as this process seemed too tedious, they bethought themselves of a more expeditious method employed against those who had hidden in the wells. Having collected a quantity of bedding and the church matting, they poured some thirty cans of kerosene upon it and then set fire to the whole. The gallery beams and wooden frame work soon caught fire, whereupon, blocking up the staircases leading to the gallery with similar inflammable material, they left the mass of struggling human beings to become the prey of the flames.
“During several hours the sickening odor of roasting flesh prevailed in the town; and even to-day, two months and a half after the massacre, the smell of charred remains in the church is unbearable.
“At 3.30 P.M. at the Moslem afternoon prayer, the trumpet again sounded, and the mob drew off from the Armenian quarter. Shortly afterward the Mufte and other notables, preceded by music, among which were brass military instruments, went round the quarter announcing that the massacre was at an end, and that there would be no more killing of Christians.
“No distinction was made between Gregorians, Protestants, and Roman Catholics, whose churches, also, were rifled. The thoroughness with which some of the work was done may be understood from the fact that one hundred twenty-six Armenian families have been absolutely wiped out, not even a woman or a baby remains. ... After very close and minute inquiry, I believe that close on eight thousand Armenians perished in the two days’ massacre, between 2500 and 3000 of whom were killed or burned in the cathedral. I should not, however, be at all surprised if nine thousand or ten thousand were subsequently found to be nearer the mark.”[145]
Miss Corinna Shattuck, the noble American lady missionary, was alone in the city of Urfa during the massacres. She was both lion-hearted and tender-hearted. She wrote: “It was apparent that the utmost was done (by the officials) to protect me, but how willingly I would have died that thousands of parents might be spared to their children.” It is stated that seventeen Armenian houses and two hundred forty persons were saved from the massacre by her special efforts. “Pastor Abouhaiydian with his six motherless children and many others had fled to the house of an Armenian doctor. The Turks attacked the house and killed forty-five men. The pastor plead for life for the sake of his children, but when he refused to accept the Islam faith they shot him through the heart. The eldest daughter, then in her 17th year, ran to her father, who said to her, ‘Fear not, the Lord is with you. I have no fear for I am going to my dear Saviour.’ The Turks took the children to a mosque, but after three days they were recovered by Miss Shattuck who kept them until claimed by friends.”[146]