I'm reading William Dalrymple's From the Holy Mountain. He recounts a story from an old Syrian priest, telling a siege that was laid out on the Syriac Christians in Tur Abdin, Turkey.

The siege appeared to be monumental that one Syriac Christian Dalrymple encountered said, "Not since Ein Wardo has the situation being so desperate for us here."

Here are the relevant passages,

At the beginning of First World War the Suriani saw the Armenians being led away by the ottoman troops and heard the rumors of what was happening to them. They feared that they would be next, so they made preparations. They bought guns and stored wheat. They chose the most inaccessible of their mountain villages, Ein Wardo, and began to fortify it. They strengthened the walls of the church and secretly prepared barricades to fill the gaps between the houses.

When the Ottomans, backed by Kurd irregulars, began their attacks on the Suriani villages, the then Patriarch gave orders for all the villagers to retreat with their food and weapons to Ein Wardo. For three years the Suriani defended themselves there. Anyone outside the barricades was killed. Nearly every Suriani alive in eastern Turkey today is there because his parents or grandparents took shelter within those walls.

"After three years," continued Abouna Shabo, "they despaired of ever conquering us and said that we were being protected by our saints, Mar Gabriel, John the Arab and especially Mar Hadbashabo.

Eventually a famous Imam, Sheikh Fatullah of Ein Kaf, came to the Muslim army and said he would try to make peace between the two sides. The Muslims asked the Sheikh to say "give up your guns", but the Sheikh, who was an honorable man, advised us not to surrender all our weapons. In the end we handed over 300 of our guns.

The Sheikh gave us his son as a hostage and said we should kill him if the Muslims broke their word. He then went on his donkey to Diyarbakir and took a written order from the Pasha-Commander that the soldiers and the Kurds should leave. I will never forget the sight of the Ottoman army taking down their tents and marching away down the valley towards Midyat."

I tried to look up for information, but I find a scarcity of records. What do we know about the siege, which seems to left a huge wound in Syriac Christian community? What do we know about Ein Wardo itself - how was it prior to the siege, when it was founded, etc?