Between 1894 and 1896 a series of ethno-religiously motivated Anti-Christian pogroms known as the Hamidian massacres were conducted against the ancient Armenian and Assyrian Christian populations by the forces of the Ottoman Empire . The motives for these massacres were an attempt to reassert Pan-Islamism in the Ottoman Empire , resentment of the comparative wealth of the ancient indigenous Christian communities , and a fear that they would attempt to secede from the tottering Ottoman Empire . The massacres mainly took place in what is today southeastern Turkey , northeastern Syria and northern Iraq . Assyrians and Armenians were massacred in Diyarbakir , Hasankeyef , Sivas and other parts of Anatolia and northern Mesopotamia , by Sultan Abdul Hamid II . The death toll is estimated to have been as high as 325,000 people , with a further 546,000 Armenians and Assyrians made destitute by forced deportations of survivors from cities , and the destruction or theft of almost 2500 of their farmsteads towns and villages . Hundreds of churches and monasteries were also destroyed or forcibly converted into mosques . These attacks caused the death of over thousands of Assyrians and the forced " Ottomanisation " of the inhabitants of 245 villages . The Ottoman troops looted the remains of the Assyrian settlements and these were later stolen and occupied by south-east Anatolian tribes . Unarmed Assyrian women and children were raped , tortured and murdered . According to H. Aboona , the independence of the Assyrians was destroyed not directly by the Turks but by their neighbours under Ottoman auspices
Hamidian massacres
Hamidian massacres
Persecution of Christians