Guba, April-May 1918. Documented Pogroms of the Muslims
60
were executed by the Armenians. Everyone decided to hide again. So
the dead bodies remained in the streets unless the Armenians with-
drew. Majority of those slain were women and children, many of them
decapitated”. (162)
That was the way when except for the people found killed in their
households and buried by their relatives in their own courtyards (163),
thousands of dead bodies of butchered residents of Guba were left
decaying for several days.
This absolutely egregious situation was the major cause of mass
burials of the Guba massacre’s victims, as the town residents and cler-
gy used to testify later on. The clerics had particularly hard time in
performing traditional funerary services for the victims. According to
mullahs (Muslim clerics), they buried 2800 dead bodies. (164) Mul-
lah Shykh Husseyn Akhundzade involved in burying 300 persons in
his parish, Section (Mahalle) 1, Guba, testified the following: “A lot
of dead bodies were mutilated by daggers, with slashed hands and
noses, many of them defaced”. (165)
Parish mullah of Guba’s Section 2 Mussarza Askarzadeh had his
own figures: “250 residents shot from guns and stabbed by daggers
with 300 more people passing away from shock and fear, 550 persons
all together”. He also added that the dead bodies remained in the
streets not collected for 5 days. With just one bullock cart available,
the residents had no other choice than burying 5 dead bodies in one
grave”. (166) Data on numbers of victims in other parts of the town,
like Sections 3 and 4, as well as the Jewish quarter were missing.
With sparse information on burying the murdered victims, tes-
timonies provide virtually no information regarding exact places and
parts of the city where dead bodies were consigned to the earth.
Oddly enough, in was only a Guba-born Baku resident Aliabbasbey
Balabey oghlu Hassanbeyov who mentioned burial places stating:
“In Guba I got all details of the Muslims’ bloodbath, I attended the
cemetery where I saw above 300 new graves dug, and people told me
that the number of dead bodies in each varied from 2 to 4-5”. (167)
Lack of testimonies regarding burying dead bodies of Muslims
executed by Armenians either by their murderers or by local residents
is explained by the fact that survivors tried not to appear outdoors
fearful of being immediately slain, as those who responded to the Ar-
menians’ call to collect and bury dead bodies never got back home