A series of anti-Armenian pogroms in Ottoman Adana killed up to 30,000 Armenians and 1,300 Assyrians, exposing ethnic and religious violence amid imperial political instability.
Key Facts
- Armenian deaths (estimated)
- 20,000–30,000
- Assyrian deaths
- 1,300
- Duration of massacres
- More than one month
- Trigger event
- Ottoman countercoup of 1909
- Trials announced
- July 1909 by Young Turk government
By the Numbers
Location
Cause → Event → Consequence
Following the restoration of the Ottoman Second Constitutional Era in 1908, a military countercoup against the Committee of Union and Progress erupted in Constantinople in April 1909. Though the revolt lasted only ten days, it reignited deep anti-Armenian sentiment among local officials, Islamic clerics, and CUP supporters throughout the Adana vilayet, fueled by political, economic, and religious prejudice.
Beginning in April 1909, Ottoman Muslims carried out widespread massacres of Armenians across the city of Adana and surrounding towns in the Adana vilayet. The violence included mass killings, destruction of Armenian businesses and farms, public hangings, sexual violence, and executions. Between 20,000 and 30,000 Armenians and 1,300 Assyrians were killed over the course of more than a month.
In July 1909, the Young Turk government announced trials of government and military officials implicated in the massacres. Unlike the earlier Hamidian massacres, these events were not centrally organized but locally instigated. The modern Turkish government and certain Turkish nationalists continue to deny the massacres occurred, leaving the events a subject of historical and political dispute.