Assyrians in Iraq
Encyclopedia
Assyrians in Iraq are those Assyrians
(also known as Chaldo-Assyrians) still residing in the country of Iraq
. They are (along with the Mandeans) the indigenous people of Iraq, descending from the ancient Mesopotamians, in particular from the Akkadian peoples (Assyrians and Babylonians) and the Aramean
tribes who intermingled with them from the 10th century BC onwards. Assyria existed as an independent state and sometimes empire in what is today Iraq from the 23rd century BC to the end of the 7th century BC, and then as an occupied but named entity (Athura, Asuristan
, Assyria
, Adiabene
) until the late 7th century AD. Assyrians are a Semitic
people who speak evolutions of the ancient eastern Aramaic dialects that have existed in Iraq since 1200 BC, and follow Eastern Rite
Christianity
which first appeared in the region in the 1st century AD, in particular the Assyrian Church of the East
, Chaldean Catholic Church
, Syriac Orthodox Church
and Ancient Church of the East
. The vast majority of Iraqi Christians are ethnic Assyrians.
After the Iraq War in 2003 the Assyrian population is estimated at 0.8 million or roughly 3% of total Iraqi population
, forming the country's third largest ethnic group.The last Iraqi census, in 1987, counted 1.4 million Assyrian Christians. Other indigenous Assyrian communities can be found just outside Iraq's borders in north east Syria
, south east Turkey
and north west Iran
.
after the Ottoman Empire
instigated the Assyrian Genocide
and subsequently violently quelled a British and Russian-inspired Assyrian rebellion
(see Assyrian War of Independence
), which although having success initially, floundered when the Russians withdrew from the war, leaving the Assyrian forces cut off and vastly outnumbered without supplies and armaments. From there, due to their higher level of education, many gravitated toward Kirkuk
and Habbaniya
, (as well as to areas in the north with age old existing indigenous Assyrian populations) where they were indispensable in the administration of the oil and military projects. As a result, approximately three-fourths of the Assyrians who had sided with the British during World War I
found themselves living in now Kurdish dominated areas of Iraq where their ancestors had existed for many thousands of years. Thousands of Assyrian men had seen service in the Iraqi Levies (Assyrian Levies
), a force under British officers separate from the regular Iraqi army. Excellent, disciplined and loyal soldiers, they were used by the British to help put down Arab and Kurdish insurrections against the British, and to help patrol the borders of British Mesopotamia. Pro-British, they had been apprehensive of Iraqi independence. Most of those thus resettled by the British have gone into exile
, although by the end of the twentieth century, almost all of those who remain were born in Iraq. Assyrians living in northern Iraq today are those whose ancestry lies in the north originally, an area roughly corresponding with Ancient Assyria. Many of these, however, in places like Berwari, have been displaced by Kurds since World War I. This process has continued throughout the twentieth century: as Kurds have expanded in population, Assyrians have come under attack as in 1933 (Simele Massacre
), and as a result have fled from Iraq. (Stafford, Tragedy of the Assyrians, 1935)
Unlike the Kurds, some Assyrians scarcely expected a nation-state of their own after World War I (despite promises by the British and Russians), but they did demand restitution
from Turkey for the material and population losses they had suffered, especially in northwest Iran, a neutral party in WWI invaded by Turkish forces. Their pressure for some temporal authority in the north of Iraq under the Assyrian patriarch, the Mar Eshai Shimun XXIII
, was flatly refused by British and Iraqis alike.
, the Mar Shamun, under house arrest
. When he left Iraq to appeal to the British with regard to how the Assyrians were being mistreated in Iraq contrary to the agreement at Iraq's independence to refrain from discrimination against minorities, he was stripped of his citizenship
and refused reentry.
During July 1933, about 800 armed Assyrians headed for the Syrian border, where they were turned back. While King Faisal
had briefly left the country for medical reasons, the Minister of Interior, Hikmat Sulayman
, adopted a policy aimed at a final solution of the "Assyrian problem". This policy was implemented by a Kurd, General Bakr Sidqi
. After engaging in several clashes with the Assyrians, on 11 August 1933, Sidqi permitted his men to kill about 3,000 unarmed Assyrian villagers, including women, children and the elderly, at the Assyrian villages of Sumail
(Simele) district, and later at Suryia. Having scapegoated the Assyrians as dangerous national traitors, this massacre of unarmed civilians became a symbol of national pride, and enhanced Sidqi's prestige. The British, though represented by a powerful military presence as provided by the Anglo-Iraqi Treaty of 1930, failed to intervene, and indeed helped white-wash the event at the League of Nations
.
The Assyrian repression marked the entrance of the military into Iraqi politics, a pattern that has periodically re-emerged since 1958, and offered an excuse for enlarging conscription. The hugely popular Assyrian massacre, an indication of the latent anti-Christian atmosphere, also set the stage for the increased prominence of Bakr Sidqi. In October 1936, Bakr Sidqi staged the first military coup in the modern Arab world
.
Assyrians continued to serve the British in Iraq (who maintained a military presence until the mid-1950s), despite earlier betrayals. Assyrian levies played an important role in putting down the pro Nazi Iraqi movement in WW2, and served the British in the Mediterranean and North African campaigns during the war.
The World Directory of Minorities states that there are over 300,000 Assyrian followers of the Chaldean Catholic rite in Iraq and that they live mainly in Baghdad. Until the 1950s, Chaldean Catholics were mostly settled in Mosul — in 1932, 70 percent of Assyrian Christians of all denominations lived there, but by 1957, only 47 percent remained, as they migrated southward due in part to ethnic and religious violence and regional and political tensions. It was estimated that about half of Iraq's Assyrian Christian's lived in Baghdad by 1979, accounting for 14 percent of that city's population
This period also marks the intensification of denominational antagonism among Aramaic speakers in Iraq as some church institutions began to distance themselves from the members of the Assyrian Church of the East
who were seen as magnets for Muslim antagonism. It is from this period that, as the new Mosul-born patriarch of the Assyrian Apostolic Church of Antioch and All the East (Jacobite) reached the pinnacle of this church's hierarchy, he began to move the Church away from the term Assyrian and toward the term "Syriac." Although the terms "Syrian" and "Syriac" are derivatives of the original term "Assyrian" historically. At the same time, this Church moved its See to Damascus
, Syria.
regime tried to change the suppression of Assyrians in Iraq through different laws that were passed. On 20 February 1972, the government passed the law to recognized the cultural rights of Assyrians by allowing Aramaic
be taught schools in which the majority of pupils spoke that language in addition to Arabic. Aramaic was also to be taught at intermediate and secondary schools in which the majority of students spoke that language in addition to Arabic, but it never happened. Special Assyrian programms were to be broadcast on public radio and television and three Syriac-language magazines were planned to be published in the capital. An Association of Syriac-Speaking Authors and Writers had also been established.
The bill turned out to be a failure. The radio stations created as the result of this decree were closed after a few months. While the two magazines were allowed to be published, only 10 percent of their material was in Aramaic. No school was allowed to teach in Aramaic either.
, Armenians, Yazidi
, Shabaks
or Mandeans), have been doubly mistreated; first by their Kurdish neighbours who outnumber them greatly, then by Saddam Hussein
's Ba'athist
regime. Assyrians were deprived of their ethnic, cultural and national rights while at the same time the Ba'athist regime tried to co-opt their history. In northern Iraq today, a similar pattern is emerging as Kurds attempt to rewrite the history of the region to give it a Kurdish flavor and diminish its historic and far older Assyrian heritage. As in Ba'athist Iraq, there is a strong tendency in Iraq today to recognize only two ethnic groups: Arab or Kurd. However, the Kurdish Autonomous Region has claimed that it has been instrumental in the renovation and support of Assyrian churches and schools.
was one of the smaller political parties that emerged in the social chaos of the occupation. Its officials say that while members of the Assyrian Democratic Movement
also took part in the liberation of the key oil cities of Kirkuk and Mosul in the north, the Assyrians were not invited to join the steering committee that was charged with defining Iraq's future. The ethnic make-up of the Iraq Interim Governing Council briefly (September 2003 - June 2004) guiding Iraq after the invasion included a single Assyrian Christian, Younadem Kana, a leader of the Assyrian Democratic Movement and an opponent of Saddam Hussein since 1979.
Assyrians in post-Saddam Iraq have faced high rate of persecution by Fundamentalist Islamist since the beginning of the Iraq war. By early August 2004 this persecution included church bombings, and fundamentalist groups' enforcement of Muslim codes of behavior upon Christians, e.g., banning alcohol, forcing women to wear hijab
. The violence against the community has led to the exodus of perhaps as much as half of the community. While Assyrians
only made just over 5% of the total Iraq
i population before the war, according to the United Nations
, Assyrians are over-represented among the Iraqi refugees (as much as 13%) who are stranded in Syria
, Jordan
, Lebanon
, and Turkey
.
A large number of Assyrians have found refuge in Christian villages in Nineveh plains
and the Kurdish Autonomous Region. This led some Assyrians and Iraqi and foreign politicians to call for a Christian autonomous region in those areas.
In 2008 the Assyrians formed their own militia, the Qaraqosh Protection Committee
to protect Assyrian towns, villages and regions in the north.
of the Islamic prophet
Muhammad
in the Danish
newspaper Jyllands-Posten
on September 30, 2005 led to an increase in violence against the Assyrian community. In the beginning, the cartoons did not get much attention at the time of its original publish, but when the an Egyptian media picked up on the publication in late December 2005, violence and protests erupted around the world.
On January 29 six churches in the Iraq
i cities of Baghdad
and Kirkuk
were targeted by car bombs, killing 13-year-old worshipper Fadi Raad Elias. No militants claimed to be retaliating for the pictures, nor is this the first time Iraqi churches have been bombed; but the bishop of the church stated "The church blasts were a reaction to the cartoons published in European papers. But Christians are not responsible for what is published in Europe."
Many Assyrians
in Iraq now feel like "Westerners should not give wild statements [as] everyone can attack us [in response]" and "Today I'm afraid to walk the streets, because I'm Christian."
Also on January 29, a Muslim Cleric in the Iraqi city of Mosul
issued a fatwa
stating, "Expel the (Assyrian) Crusaders and infidels from the streets, schools, and institutions because they have offended the person of the prophet." It has been reported that Muslim students beat up a Christian student at Mosul University in response to the fatwa on the same day.
On February 6, leaflets were distributed in Ramadi
, Iraq by the militant group "The Military Wing for the Army of Justice" demanding Christians to "halt their religious rituals in churches and other worship places because they insulted Islam and Muslims."
The Pope Benedict XVI
Islam controversy arose from a lecture delivered on 12 September 2006 by Pope Benedict XVI at the University of Regensburg
in Germany
. Many Islamic politicians and religious leaders registered protest against what they said was an insulting mischaracterization of Islam, contained in the quotation by the Pope of the following passage:
After the Pope's comments where known throughout the Arab world
, several churches were bombed by insurgent groups. A previously unknown Baghdad
-based group, Kataab Ashbal Al-Islam Al-Salafi (Islamic Salafist Boy Scout Battalions) threatened to kill all Christians in Iraq if the Pope does not apologize to Muhammad within three days. Christian Leaders in Iraq have asked their parishioners not to leave their homes, after two Assyrians were stabbed and killed in Baghdad.
There have been reports of writing in Assyrian church doors stating "If the Pope does not apologise, we will bomb all churches, kill more Christians and steal their property and money."
The Iraqi militia Jaish al-Mujahedin (Holy Warriors' Army) announced its intention to "destroy their cross in the heart of Rome… and to hit the Vatican."
Despite the Pope's comments dying down in the media, attacks on Assyrian Christians continued and on October 9, Islamic extremist group kidnapped priest Paulos Iskander in Mosul. Iskander's church as well as several other churches placed 30 large posters around the city to distance themselves from the Pope's words. The relatives of the Christian priest who was beheaded 3 days later in Mosul, have said that his Muslim captors had demanded his church condemn the pope's recent comments about Islam and pay a $350,000 ransom.
Massacres, ethnic cleansing
, and harassment has increased since 2003, according to a 73 page report by the Assyrian International News Agency
, released in Summer 2007.
On January 6, 2008 (Epiphany day,) five Assyrian Churches, one Armenian Church, and a monastery
in Mosul and Baghdad were coordinately attacked with multiple car bombs. Iraqi vice-president Tariq al-Hashimi
expressed his "closeness to Christians", whom he called "brothers" in the face of this "attack that changed their joy to sadness and anxiety". Two days later, on January 8, two more Churches were bombed in the city of Kirkuk
; the Chaldean Cathedral of Kirkuk and the ACOE Maar Afram Church, wounding three bystandards. Since the start of the Iraq war, there have been at least 46 Churches and Monasteries bombed.
Leaders of Iraq's Christian community estimate that over two-thirds of the country's Christian population may have fled the country or been internally displaced since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003. While exact numbers are unknown, reports suggest that whole neighborhoods of Christians have cleared out in the cities of Baghdad
and Al-Basrah, and that both Sunni and Shiite insurgent groups and militias have threatened Christians.
The gravity of the situation prompted Shiite Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani to ask Vice President Adil Abd al-Mahdi to take steps to protect the Christian community. Sunni imams in Baghdad have made similar statements to their congregations in Friday Prayer sermons.
Including those mentioned already, many other Assyrian religious officials have been targeted since 2003. Chaldean
Catholic priest Ragheed Aziz Ganni was murdered together with subdeacons Basman Yousef Dawid, Wahid Hanna Isho, and Gassan Isam Bidawed after the Sunday evening Eucharist
at Mosul's Holy Spirit
Chaldean Church. Paulos Faraj Rahho
, Chaldean Catholic archbishop of Mosul, was found in a shallow grave in the northern city two weeks after he was kidnapped. Youssef Adel, an Syriac Orthodox
priest with Saint Peter's Church in Baghdad's Karadda neighbourhood, was killed by gunmen while travelling on a car on April 5, 2008.
On April 11, President Bush was interviewed by Cliff Kincaid of the EWTN Global Catholic Network; after being informed about the detoriating situation of the Assyirians, President Bush was quoted as saying "This is a Muslim government that has failed to protect the Christians. In fact, it discriminates against them....It’s time to order U.S. troops to protect Christian churches and believers."
In October 2008, National Public Radio reported that a new phenomenon was spreading through the Assyrian Christian towns and villages of northern Iraq: Christian security forces, organized through their local churches, began manning checkpoints and working with the Iraqi police. Father Daoud Suleiman from the Assyrian town of Bartella
testified that without the Christian militias, Bartella and other villages would be in much worse shape than they are now. A mysterious, media-shy, and wealthy Assyrian Sarkis Aghajan Mamendo
was a key player in this apparently straightforward story of a small beleaguered minority learning to stand up for itself once more. He is the finance minister for the Kurdish regional government, and he is a member of the Kurdish Democratic Party believed to be close to Kurdish Prime Minister Nechirvan Barzani. New churches are going up across the north, paid for, everyone says, by Sarkis. New schools, more than 300 new apartments for displaced Christian families from the south, an Assyrian cultural center in Bartella — the list goes on.
Attacks against the community began again in December 2009 in Mosul
and picked in February 2010. It led to the assassination of over 20 Christians and the bombings of churches in Mosul. The attacks led to up to 4,300 Assyrians flying Mosul to the Nineveh plains
where there is an Assyrian majority population.
The people fled to the following Assyrian cities:
Arrival of displaced people
The report goes on and states 20% of the Assyrians live in Baghdad
and 60% in Mosul
.
The Iraqi Minorities Council and the Minority Rights Group International estimated that Iraq's pre-war Assyrian population was 800,000.
Assyrian people
The Assyrian people are a distinct ethnic group whose origins lie in ancient Mesopotamia...
(also known as Chaldo-Assyrians) still residing in the country of Iraq
Iraq
Iraq ; officially the Republic of Iraq is a country in Western Asia spanning most of the northwestern end of the Zagros mountain range, the eastern part of the Syrian Desert and the northern part of the Arabian Desert....
. They are (along with the Mandeans) the indigenous people of Iraq, descending from the ancient Mesopotamians, in particular from the Akkadian peoples (Assyrians and Babylonians) and the Aramean
Aramaeans
The Aramaeans, also Arameans , were a Northwest Semitic semi-nomadic and pastoralist people who originated in what is now modern Syria during the Late Bronze Age and the Iron Age...
tribes who intermingled with them from the 10th century BC onwards. Assyria existed as an independent state and sometimes empire in what is today Iraq from the 23rd century BC to the end of the 7th century BC, and then as an occupied but named entity (Athura, Asuristan
Asuristan
Asuristan was the province of Assyria under the Sassanid Empire . It corresponds to the Babylonia province under the Parthian Empire.The province for the most part stretched from Mosul to Adiabene....
, Assyria
Assyria
Assyria was a Semitic Akkadian kingdom, extant as a nation state from the mid–23rd century BC to 608 BC centred on the Upper Tigris river, in northern Mesopotamia , that came to rule regional empires a number of times through history. It was named for its original capital, the ancient city of Assur...
, Adiabene
Adiabene
Adiabene was an ancient Assyrian independent kingdom in Mesopotamia, with its capital at Arbela...
) until the late 7th century AD. Assyrians are a Semitic
Semitic
In linguistics and ethnology, Semitic was first used to refer to a language family of largely Middle Eastern origin, now called the Semitic languages...
people who speak evolutions of the ancient eastern Aramaic dialects that have existed in Iraq since 1200 BC, and follow Eastern Rite
Eastern Christianity
Eastern Christianity comprises the Christian traditions and churches that developed in the Balkans, Eastern Europe, Asia Minor, the Middle East, Northeastern Africa, India and parts of the Far East over several centuries of religious antiquity. The term is generally used in Western Christianity to...
Christianity
Christianity
Christianity is a monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus as presented in canonical gospels and other New Testament writings...
which first appeared in the region in the 1st century AD, in particular the Assyrian Church of the East
Assyrian Church of the East
The Assyrian Church of the East, officially the Holy Apostolic Catholic Assyrian Church of the East ʻIttā Qaddishtā w-Shlikhāitā Qattoliqi d-Madnĕkhā d-Āturāyē), is a Syriac Church historically centered in Mesopotamia. It is one of the churches that claim continuity with the historical...
, Chaldean Catholic Church
Chaldean Catholic Church
The Chaldean Catholic Church , is an Eastern Syriac particular church of the Catholic Church, maintaining full communion with the Bishop of Rome and the rest of the Catholic Church...
, Syriac Orthodox Church
Syriac Orthodox Church
The Syriac Orthodox Church; is an autocephalous Oriental Orthodox church based in the Eastern Mediterranean, with members spread throughout the world. The Syriac Orthodox Church claims to derive its origin from one of the first Christian communities, established in Antioch by the Apostle St....
and Ancient Church of the East
Ancient Church of the East
The Ancient Church of the East was established in 1968. It follows the traditions of one of the oldest Christian churches, the Church of the East, whose origins trace back to the See of Seleucia-Ctesiphon in central Mesopotamia...
. The vast majority of Iraqi Christians are ethnic Assyrians.
After the Iraq War in 2003 the Assyrian population is estimated at 0.8 million or roughly 3% of total Iraqi population
Demographics of Iraq
This article is about the demographic features of the population of Iraq, including population density, ethnicity, education level, health of the populace, economic status, religious affiliations and other aspects of the population....
, forming the country's third largest ethnic group.The last Iraqi census, in 1987, counted 1.4 million Assyrian Christians. Other indigenous Assyrian communities can be found just outside Iraq's borders in north east Syria
Syria
Syria , officially the Syrian Arab Republic , is a country in Western Asia, bordering Lebanon and the Mediterranean Sea to the West, Turkey to the north, Iraq to the east, Jordan to the south, and Israel to the southwest....
, south east Turkey
Turkey
Turkey , known officially as the Republic of Turkey , is a Eurasian country located in Western Asia and in East Thrace in Southeastern Europe...
and north west Iran
Iran
Iran , officially the Islamic Republic of Iran , is a country in Southern and Western Asia. The name "Iran" has been in use natively since the Sassanian era and came into use internationally in 1935, before which the country was known to the Western world as Persia...
.
British Mandate
In 1918, Britain resettled 20,000 Assyrian people from Turkey in Iraqi refugee camps in Baquba and MandanMandan (disambiguation)
Mandan can refer to:* The Mandan Native American tribe* Mandan language* Mandan, North Dakota* Mandan, Michigan* Mandan, NWFP...
after the Ottoman Empire
Ottoman Empire
The Ottoman EmpireIt was usually referred to as the "Ottoman Empire", the "Turkish Empire", the "Ottoman Caliphate" or more commonly "Turkey" by its contemporaries...
instigated the Assyrian Genocide
Assyrian genocide
The Assyrian Genocide refers to the mass slaughter of the Assyrian/Chaldean/Syriac population of the Ottoman Empire during the 1890s, the First World War, and the period of 1922-1925...
and subsequently violently quelled a British and Russian-inspired Assyrian rebellion
Rebellion
Rebellion, uprising or insurrection, is a refusal of obedience or order. It may, therefore, be seen as encompassing a range of behaviors aimed at destroying or replacing an established authority such as a government or a head of state...
(see Assyrian War of Independence
Assyrian war of independence
The Assyrian struggle for Independence was waged by the Assyrian Patriarch and the chiefs of the Assyrians between 1843 and 1933, with later assistance from the British Empire, against the Ottoman Empire, the Soviet Union, the Persian Empire, the Kingdom of Iraq, the French Mandate of Syria, and...
), which although having success initially, floundered when the Russians withdrew from the war, leaving the Assyrian forces cut off and vastly outnumbered without supplies and armaments. From there, due to their higher level of education, many gravitated toward Kirkuk
Kirkuk
Kirkuk is a city in Iraq and the capital of Kirkuk Governorate.It is located in the Iraqi governorate of Kirkuk, north of the capital, Baghdad...
and Habbaniya
Habbaniyah
Al Habbaniyah or Habbaniya is a city in Al-Anbar Province, in central Iraq.-References:...
, (as well as to areas in the north with age old existing indigenous Assyrian populations) where they were indispensable in the administration of the oil and military projects. As a result, approximately three-fourths of the Assyrians who had sided with the British during World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
found themselves living in now Kurdish dominated areas of Iraq where their ancestors had existed for many thousands of years. Thousands of Assyrian men had seen service in the Iraqi Levies (Assyrian Levies
Assyrian Levies
The Iraq Levies was the first Iraqi military forces established by the British in British controlled Iraq. The Iraq Levies were a most noteworthy feature of the Kingdom of Iraq, and especially of northern Iraq during the years of the mandate, and no account of the Assyrians or indeed of Iraq itself...
), a force under British officers separate from the regular Iraqi army. Excellent, disciplined and loyal soldiers, they were used by the British to help put down Arab and Kurdish insurrections against the British, and to help patrol the borders of British Mesopotamia. Pro-British, they had been apprehensive of Iraqi independence. Most of those thus resettled by the British have gone into exile
Exile
Exile means to be away from one's home , while either being explicitly refused permission to return and/or being threatened with imprisonment or death upon return...
, although by the end of the twentieth century, almost all of those who remain were born in Iraq. Assyrians living in northern Iraq today are those whose ancestry lies in the north originally, an area roughly corresponding with Ancient Assyria. Many of these, however, in places like Berwari, have been displaced by Kurds since World War I. This process has continued throughout the twentieth century: as Kurds have expanded in population, Assyrians have come under attack as in 1933 (Simele Massacre
Simele massacre
The Simele Massacre was a massacre committed by the armed forces of the Kingdom of Iraq during the systematic targeting of Assyrians in northern Iraq in August 1933...
), and as a result have fled from Iraq. (Stafford, Tragedy of the Assyrians, 1935)
Unlike the Kurds, some Assyrians scarcely expected a nation-state of their own after World War I (despite promises by the British and Russians), but they did demand restitution
Restitution
The law of restitution is the law of gains-based recovery. It is to be contrasted with the law of compensation, which is the law of loss-based recovery. Obligations to make restitution and obligations to pay compensation are each a type of legal response to events in the real world. When a court...
from Turkey for the material and population losses they had suffered, especially in northwest Iran, a neutral party in WWI invaded by Turkish forces. Their pressure for some temporal authority in the north of Iraq under the Assyrian patriarch, the Mar Eshai Shimun XXIII
Mar Eshai Shimun XXIII
Mar Eshai Shimun XXIII , sometimes known as Mar Shimun XXI Ishaya, Mar Shimun Ishai, or Simon Jesse, was Catholicos Patriarch of the Assyrian Church of the East from 1920, when he was a youth, until his assassination on 6 November 1975...
, was flatly refused by British and Iraqis alike.
Independent Kingdom of Iraq
In 1933, the Iraqi government held the Patriarch of the Assyrian Church of the EastAssyrian Church of the East
The Assyrian Church of the East, officially the Holy Apostolic Catholic Assyrian Church of the East ʻIttā Qaddishtā w-Shlikhāitā Qattoliqi d-Madnĕkhā d-Āturāyē), is a Syriac Church historically centered in Mesopotamia. It is one of the churches that claim continuity with the historical...
, the Mar Shamun, under house arrest
House arrest
In justice and law, house arrest is a measure by which a person is confined by the authorities to his or her residence. Travel is usually restricted, if allowed at all...
. When he left Iraq to appeal to the British with regard to how the Assyrians were being mistreated in Iraq contrary to the agreement at Iraq's independence to refrain from discrimination against minorities, he was stripped of his citizenship
Citizenship
Citizenship is the state of being a citizen of a particular social, political, national, or human resource community. Citizenship status, under social contract theory, carries with it both rights and responsibilities...
and refused reentry.
During July 1933, about 800 armed Assyrians headed for the Syrian border, where they were turned back. While King Faisal
Faisal I of Iraq
Faisal bin Hussein bin Ali al-Hashemi, was for a short time King of the Arab Kingdom of Syria or Greater Syria in 1920, and was King of the Kingdom of Iraq from 23 August 1921 to 1933...
had briefly left the country for medical reasons, the Minister of Interior, Hikmat Sulayman
Hikmat Sulayman
Hikmat Sulayman was prime minister of Iraq from October 30, 1936 to August 12, 1937 at the head of a Party of National Brotherhood government. Sulayman, an ethnic Turkmen, was a key figure in the early days of Iraqi independence and the effort to create a multi-ethnic state. He came to power in...
, adopted a policy aimed at a final solution of the "Assyrian problem". This policy was implemented by a Kurd, General Bakr Sidqi
Bakr Sidqi
Bakr Sidqi , an Iraqi nationalist and general of Kurdish origin, but not a Kurdish nationalist, was born 1890 in Kirkuk and assassinated on August 12, 1937, at Mosul.-Biography:...
. After engaging in several clashes with the Assyrians, on 11 August 1933, Sidqi permitted his men to kill about 3,000 unarmed Assyrian villagers, including women, children and the elderly, at the Assyrian villages of Sumail
Sumail
Simele or Sumail is a Kurdish and Assyrian town located in the Iraqi province of Dohuk. The city is on the main road that connects Iraq to its neighbour Turkey...
(Simele) district, and later at Suryia. Having scapegoated the Assyrians as dangerous national traitors, this massacre of unarmed civilians became a symbol of national pride, and enhanced Sidqi's prestige. The British, though represented by a powerful military presence as provided by the Anglo-Iraqi Treaty of 1930, failed to intervene, and indeed helped white-wash the event at the League of Nations
League of Nations
The League of Nations was an intergovernmental organization founded as a result of the Paris Peace Conference that ended the First World War. It was the first permanent international organization whose principal mission was to maintain world peace...
.
The Assyrian repression marked the entrance of the military into Iraqi politics, a pattern that has periodically re-emerged since 1958, and offered an excuse for enlarging conscription. The hugely popular Assyrian massacre, an indication of the latent anti-Christian atmosphere, also set the stage for the increased prominence of Bakr Sidqi. In October 1936, Bakr Sidqi staged the first military coup in the modern Arab world
Arab world
The Arab world refers to Arabic-speaking states, territories and populations in North Africa, Western Asia and elsewhere.The standard definition of the Arab world comprises the 22 states and territories of the Arab League stretching from the Atlantic Ocean in the west to the Arabian Sea in the...
.
Assyrians continued to serve the British in Iraq (who maintained a military presence until the mid-1950s), despite earlier betrayals. Assyrian levies played an important role in putting down the pro Nazi Iraqi movement in WW2, and served the British in the Mediterranean and North African campaigns during the war.
The World Directory of Minorities states that there are over 300,000 Assyrian followers of the Chaldean Catholic rite in Iraq and that they live mainly in Baghdad. Until the 1950s, Chaldean Catholics were mostly settled in Mosul — in 1932, 70 percent of Assyrian Christians of all denominations lived there, but by 1957, only 47 percent remained, as they migrated southward due in part to ethnic and religious violence and regional and political tensions. It was estimated that about half of Iraq's Assyrian Christian's lived in Baghdad by 1979, accounting for 14 percent of that city's population
This period also marks the intensification of denominational antagonism among Aramaic speakers in Iraq as some church institutions began to distance themselves from the members of the Assyrian Church of the East
Assyrian Church of the East
The Assyrian Church of the East, officially the Holy Apostolic Catholic Assyrian Church of the East ʻIttā Qaddishtā w-Shlikhāitā Qattoliqi d-Madnĕkhā d-Āturāyē), is a Syriac Church historically centered in Mesopotamia. It is one of the churches that claim continuity with the historical...
who were seen as magnets for Muslim antagonism. It is from this period that, as the new Mosul-born patriarch of the Assyrian Apostolic Church of Antioch and All the East (Jacobite) reached the pinnacle of this church's hierarchy, he began to move the Church away from the term Assyrian and toward the term "Syriac." Although the terms "Syrian" and "Syriac" are derivatives of the original term "Assyrian" historically. At the same time, this Church moved its See to Damascus
Damascus
Damascus , commonly known in Syria as Al Sham , and as the City of Jasmine , is the capital and the second largest city of Syria after Aleppo, both are part of the country's 14 governorates. In addition to being one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world, Damascus is a major...
, Syria.
Recognition of the Syriac language by the Ba'thist regime
In the early 1970s, the Ba'athBa'athist Iraq
The History of Iraq , referred to as Ba'athist Iraq, covers the period of the Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party's rule over Iraq. Ba'athist rule in Iraq first occurred briefly in 1963 under Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr until overthrown that same year. Ba'athism was restored to power five years later after...
regime tried to change the suppression of Assyrians in Iraq through different laws that were passed. On 20 February 1972, the government passed the law to recognized the cultural rights of Assyrians by allowing Aramaic
Aramaic language
Aramaic is a group of languages belonging to the Afroasiatic language phylum. The name of the language is based on the name of Aram, an ancient region in central Syria. Within this family, Aramaic belongs to the Semitic family, and more specifically, is a part of the Northwest Semitic subfamily,...
be taught schools in which the majority of pupils spoke that language in addition to Arabic. Aramaic was also to be taught at intermediate and secondary schools in which the majority of students spoke that language in addition to Arabic, but it never happened. Special Assyrian programms were to be broadcast on public radio and television and three Syriac-language magazines were planned to be published in the capital. An Association of Syriac-Speaking Authors and Writers had also been established.
The bill turned out to be a failure. The radio stations created as the result of this decree were closed after a few months. While the two magazines were allowed to be published, only 10 percent of their material was in Aramaic. No school was allowed to teach in Aramaic either.
Population
In modern times, Assyrians, for whom no reliable census figures exist in Iraq (as they do not for Kurds, TurkmenTurkmen people
The Turkmen are a Turkic people located primarily in the Central Asian states of Turkmenistan, Afghanistan, and northeastern Iran. They speak the Turkmen language, which is classified as a part of the Western Oghuz branch of the Turkic languages family together with Turkish, Azerbaijani, Qashqai,...
, Armenians, Yazidi
Yazidi
The Yazidi are members of a Kurdish religion with ancient Indo-Iranian roots. They are primarily a Kurdish-speaking people living in the Mosul region of northern Iraq, with additional communities in Transcaucasia, Armenia, Turkey, and Syria in decline since the 1990s – their members emigrating to...
, Shabaks
Shabak people
Shabak people are an ethnic and religious minority group living in northern Iraq, who live mainly in the villages of Ali Rash, Khazna, Yangidja, and Tallara in Sinjar district in the province of Ninawa in northern Iraq. Their language, Shabaki, is a Northwestern Iranian language very close to...
or Mandeans), have been doubly mistreated; first by their Kurdish neighbours who outnumber them greatly, then by Saddam Hussein
Saddam Hussein
Saddam Hussein Abd al-Majid al-Tikriti was the fifth President of Iraq, serving in this capacity from 16 July 1979 until 9 April 2003...
's Ba'athist
Baath Party
The Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party was a political party mixing Arab nationalist and Arab socialist interests, opposed to Western imperialism, and calling for the renaissance or resurrection and unification of the Arab world into a single state. Ba'ath is also spelled Ba'th or Baath and means...
regime. Assyrians were deprived of their ethnic, cultural and national rights while at the same time the Ba'athist regime tried to co-opt their history. In northern Iraq today, a similar pattern is emerging as Kurds attempt to rewrite the history of the region to give it a Kurdish flavor and diminish its historic and far older Assyrian heritage. As in Ba'athist Iraq, there is a strong tendency in Iraq today to recognize only two ethnic groups: Arab or Kurd. However, the Kurdish Autonomous Region has claimed that it has been instrumental in the renovation and support of Assyrian churches and schools.
Post-Saddam Iraq
After Saddam Hussein's fall in 2003, the Assyrian Democratic MovementAssyrian Democratic Movement
The Assyrian Democratic Movement also known as Zowaa is an ethnic Assyrian political party in Iraq, and is currently the only Assyrian-based political party to be voting in the Iraqi parliament....
was one of the smaller political parties that emerged in the social chaos of the occupation. Its officials say that while members of the Assyrian Democratic Movement
Assyrian Democratic Movement
The Assyrian Democratic Movement also known as Zowaa is an ethnic Assyrian political party in Iraq, and is currently the only Assyrian-based political party to be voting in the Iraqi parliament....
also took part in the liberation of the key oil cities of Kirkuk and Mosul in the north, the Assyrians were not invited to join the steering committee that was charged with defining Iraq's future. The ethnic make-up of the Iraq Interim Governing Council briefly (September 2003 - June 2004) guiding Iraq after the invasion included a single Assyrian Christian, Younadem Kana, a leader of the Assyrian Democratic Movement and an opponent of Saddam Hussein since 1979.
Assyrians in post-Saddam Iraq have faced high rate of persecution by Fundamentalist Islamist since the beginning of the Iraq war. By early August 2004 this persecution included church bombings, and fundamentalist groups' enforcement of Muslim codes of behavior upon Christians, e.g., banning alcohol, forcing women to wear hijab
Hijab
The word "hijab" or "'" refers to both the head covering traditionally worn by Muslim women and modest Muslim styles of dress in general....
. The violence against the community has led to the exodus of perhaps as much as half of the community. While Assyrians
Assyrian people
The Assyrian people are a distinct ethnic group whose origins lie in ancient Mesopotamia...
only made just over 5% of the total Iraq
Iraq
Iraq ; officially the Republic of Iraq is a country in Western Asia spanning most of the northwestern end of the Zagros mountain range, the eastern part of the Syrian Desert and the northern part of the Arabian Desert....
i population before the war, according to the United Nations
United Nations
The United Nations is an international organization whose stated aims are facilitating cooperation in international law, international security, economic development, social progress, human rights, and achievement of world peace...
, Assyrians are over-represented among the Iraqi refugees (as much as 13%) who are stranded in Syria
Syria
Syria , officially the Syrian Arab Republic , is a country in Western Asia, bordering Lebanon and the Mediterranean Sea to the West, Turkey to the north, Iraq to the east, Jordan to the south, and Israel to the southwest....
, Jordan
Jordan
Jordan , officially the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan , Al-Mamlaka al-Urduniyya al-Hashemiyya) is a kingdom on the East Bank of the River Jordan. The country borders Saudi Arabia to the east and south-east, Iraq to the north-east, Syria to the north and the West Bank and Israel to the west, sharing...
, Lebanon
Lebanon
Lebanon , officially the Republic of LebanonRepublic of Lebanon is the most common term used by Lebanese government agencies. The term Lebanese Republic, a literal translation of the official Arabic and French names that is not used in today's world. Arabic is the most common language spoken among...
, and Turkey
Turkey
Turkey , known officially as the Republic of Turkey , is a Eurasian country located in Western Asia and in East Thrace in Southeastern Europe...
.
A large number of Assyrians have found refuge in Christian villages in Nineveh plains
Nineveh plains
Nineveh plains is a region in the Ninawa Governorate of Iraq to the north and west of the city Mosul. The area generally consists of three districts; Tel Keppe, Al-Hamdaniya, and Al-Shikhan...
and the Kurdish Autonomous Region. This led some Assyrians and Iraqi and foreign politicians to call for a Christian autonomous region in those areas.
In 2008 the Assyrians formed their own militia, the Qaraqosh Protection Committee
Qaraqosh Protection Committee
The Qaraqosh Protection Committee is an armed militia formed by Assyrian Christians in the Ninawa Governorate of Iraq. The formed in 2008, organized through their local churches, began manning checkpoints and working with the Iraqi police....
to protect Assyrian towns, villages and regions in the north.
Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons
The publication of satirical cartoonsEditorial cartoon
An editorial cartoon, also known as a political cartoon, is an illustration containing a commentary that usually relates to current events or personalities....
of the Islamic prophet
Prophets of Islam
Muslims identify the Prophets of Islam as those humans chosen by God and given revelation to deliver to mankind. Muslims believe that every prophet was given a belief to worship God and their respective followers believed it as well...
Muhammad
Muhammad
Muhammad |ligature]] at U+FDF4 ;Arabic pronunciation varies regionally; the first vowel ranges from ~~; the second and the last vowel: ~~~. There are dialects which have no stress. In Egypt, it is pronounced not in religious contexts...
in the Danish
Denmark
Denmark is a Scandinavian country in Northern Europe. The countries of Denmark and Greenland, as well as the Faroe Islands, constitute the Kingdom of Denmark . It is the southernmost of the Nordic countries, southwest of Sweden and south of Norway, and bordered to the south by Germany. Denmark...
newspaper Jyllands-Posten
Jyllands-Posten
Morgenavisen Jyllands-Posten , commonly shortened to Jyllands-Posten or JP, is a Danish daily broadsheet newspaper. It is based in Viby, a suburb of Århus, and with a weekday circulation of approximately 120,000 copies, it is among the largest-selling newspaper in Denmark...
on September 30, 2005 led to an increase in violence against the Assyrian community. In the beginning, the cartoons did not get much attention at the time of its original publish, but when the an Egyptian media picked up on the publication in late December 2005, violence and protests erupted around the world.
Iraq
Iraq ; officially the Republic of Iraq is a country in Western Asia spanning most of the northwestern end of the Zagros mountain range, the eastern part of the Syrian Desert and the northern part of the Arabian Desert....
i cities of Baghdad
Baghdad
Baghdad is the capital of Iraq, as well as the coterminous Baghdad Governorate. The population of Baghdad in 2011 is approximately 7,216,040...
and Kirkuk
Kirkuk
Kirkuk is a city in Iraq and the capital of Kirkuk Governorate.It is located in the Iraqi governorate of Kirkuk, north of the capital, Baghdad...
were targeted by car bombs, killing 13-year-old worshipper Fadi Raad Elias. No militants claimed to be retaliating for the pictures, nor is this the first time Iraqi churches have been bombed; but the bishop of the church stated "The church blasts were a reaction to the cartoons published in European papers. But Christians are not responsible for what is published in Europe."
Many Assyrians
Assyrian people
The Assyrian people are a distinct ethnic group whose origins lie in ancient Mesopotamia...
in Iraq now feel like "Westerners should not give wild statements [as] everyone can attack us [in response]" and "Today I'm afraid to walk the streets, because I'm Christian."
Also on January 29, a Muslim Cleric in the Iraqi city of Mosul
Mosul
Mosul , is a city in northern Iraq and the capital of the Ninawa Governorate, some northwest of Baghdad. The original city stands on the west bank of the Tigris River, opposite the ancient Assyrian city of Nineveh on the east bank, but the metropolitan area has now grown to encompass substantial...
issued a fatwa
Fatwa
A fatwā in the Islamic faith is a juristic ruling concerning Islamic law issued by an Islamic scholar. In Sunni Islam any fatwā is non-binding, whereas in Shia Islam it could be considered by an individual as binding, depending on his or her relation to the scholar. The person who issues a fatwā...
stating, "Expel the (Assyrian) Crusaders and infidels from the streets, schools, and institutions because they have offended the person of the prophet." It has been reported that Muslim students beat up a Christian student at Mosul University in response to the fatwa on the same day.
On February 6, leaflets were distributed in Ramadi
Ramadi
Ramadi is a city in central Iraq, about west of Baghdad. It is the capital of Al Anbar Governorate.-History:Ramadi is located in a fertile, irrigated, alluvial plain.The Ottoman Empire founded Ramadi in 1869...
, Iraq by the militant group "The Military Wing for the Army of Justice" demanding Christians to "halt their religious rituals in churches and other worship places because they insulted Islam and Muslims."
Pope Benedict XVI Islam controversy
The Pope Benedict XVI
Pope Benedict XVI
Benedict XVI is the 265th and current Pope, by virtue of his office of Bishop of Rome, the Sovereign of the Vatican City State and the leader of the Catholic Church as well as the other 22 sui iuris Eastern Catholic Churches in full communion with the Holy See...
Islam controversy arose from a lecture delivered on 12 September 2006 by Pope Benedict XVI at the University of Regensburg
University of Regensburg
The University of Regensburg is a public research university located in the medieval city of Regensburg, Bavaria, a city that is listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The university was founded on July 18, 1962 by the Landtag of Bavaria as the fourth full-fledged university in Bavaria...
in Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
. Many Islamic politicians and religious leaders registered protest against what they said was an insulting mischaracterization of Islam, contained in the quotation by the Pope of the following passage:
After the Pope's comments where known throughout the Arab world
Arab world
The Arab world refers to Arabic-speaking states, territories and populations in North Africa, Western Asia and elsewhere.The standard definition of the Arab world comprises the 22 states and territories of the Arab League stretching from the Atlantic Ocean in the west to the Arabian Sea in the...
, several churches were bombed by insurgent groups. A previously unknown Baghdad
Baghdad
Baghdad is the capital of Iraq, as well as the coterminous Baghdad Governorate. The population of Baghdad in 2011 is approximately 7,216,040...
-based group, Kataab Ashbal Al-Islam Al-Salafi (Islamic Salafist Boy Scout Battalions) threatened to kill all Christians in Iraq if the Pope does not apologize to Muhammad within three days. Christian Leaders in Iraq have asked their parishioners not to leave their homes, after two Assyrians were stabbed and killed in Baghdad.
There have been reports of writing in Assyrian church doors stating "If the Pope does not apologise, we will bomb all churches, kill more Christians and steal their property and money."
The Iraqi militia Jaish al-Mujahedin (Holy Warriors' Army) announced its intention to "destroy their cross in the heart of Rome… and to hit the Vatican."
Despite the Pope's comments dying down in the media, attacks on Assyrian Christians continued and on October 9, Islamic extremist group kidnapped priest Paulos Iskander in Mosul. Iskander's church as well as several other churches placed 30 large posters around the city to distance themselves from the Pope's words. The relatives of the Christian priest who was beheaded 3 days later in Mosul, have said that his Muslim captors had demanded his church condemn the pope's recent comments about Islam and pay a $350,000 ransom.
Massacres and harassment since 2003
Massacres, ethnic cleansing
Ethnic cleansing
Ethnic cleansing is a purposeful policy designed by one ethnic or religious group to remove by violent and terror-inspiring means the civilian population of another ethnic orreligious group from certain geographic areas....
, and harassment has increased since 2003, according to a 73 page report by the Assyrian International News Agency
Assyrian International News Agency
The Assyrian International News Agency is a privately funded, independent news agency which provides news and analysis on Assyrian and Assyrian-related issues...
, released in Summer 2007.
On January 6, 2008 (Epiphany day,) five Assyrian Churches, one Armenian Church, and a monastery
Monastery
Monastery denotes the building, or complex of buildings, that houses a room reserved for prayer as well as the domestic quarters and workplace of monastics, whether monks or nuns, and whether living in community or alone .Monasteries may vary greatly in size – a small dwelling accommodating only...
in Mosul and Baghdad were coordinately attacked with multiple car bombs. Iraqi vice-president Tariq al-Hashimi
Tariq Al-Hashimi
Tariq al-Hashimi is an Iraqi politician and was general secretary of the Iraqi Islamic Party until May 2009. Along with Adil Abdul Mahdi, he is a Vice President of Iraq in the government formed after the December 2005 elections...
expressed his "closeness to Christians", whom he called "brothers" in the face of this "attack that changed their joy to sadness and anxiety". Two days later, on January 8, two more Churches were bombed in the city of Kirkuk
Kirkuk
Kirkuk is a city in Iraq and the capital of Kirkuk Governorate.It is located in the Iraqi governorate of Kirkuk, north of the capital, Baghdad...
; the Chaldean Cathedral of Kirkuk and the ACOE Maar Afram Church, wounding three bystandards. Since the start of the Iraq war, there have been at least 46 Churches and Monasteries bombed.
Threats on population
Leaders of Iraq's Christian community estimate that over two-thirds of the country's Christian population may have fled the country or been internally displaced since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003. While exact numbers are unknown, reports suggest that whole neighborhoods of Christians have cleared out in the cities of Baghdad
Baghdad
Baghdad is the capital of Iraq, as well as the coterminous Baghdad Governorate. The population of Baghdad in 2011 is approximately 7,216,040...
and Al-Basrah, and that both Sunni and Shiite insurgent groups and militias have threatened Christians.
The gravity of the situation prompted Shiite Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani to ask Vice President Adil Abd al-Mahdi to take steps to protect the Christian community. Sunni imams in Baghdad have made similar statements to their congregations in Friday Prayer sermons.
Religious official targets
Including those mentioned already, many other Assyrian religious officials have been targeted since 2003. Chaldean
Chaldean Christians
Chaldean Christians are ethnic Assyrian adherents of the Chaldean Catholic Church, most of whom entered communion with the Catholic Church from the Church of the East, which was already Catholic, but most wanted to stray away from the Catholic Church, causing the split in the 17th and 18th...
Catholic priest Ragheed Aziz Ganni was murdered together with subdeacons Basman Yousef Dawid, Wahid Hanna Isho, and Gassan Isam Bidawed after the Sunday evening Eucharist
East Syrian Rite
The East Syrian Rite is a Christian liturgy, also known as the Assyro-Chaldean Rite, Assyrian or Chaldean Rite, and the Persian Rite although it originated in Edessa, Mesopotamia...
at Mosul's Holy Spirit
Holy Spirit
Holy Spirit is a term introduced in English translations of the Hebrew Bible, but understood differently in the main Abrahamic religions.While the general concept of a "Spirit" that permeates the cosmos has been used in various religions Holy Spirit is a term introduced in English translations of...
Chaldean Church. Paulos Faraj Rahho
Paulos Faraj Rahho
Archbishop Mar Paulos Faraj Rahho was the Chaldean Catholic Archeparch of Mosul, in the northern part of Iraq.Also known as Paul Faraj Rahho and Paulos Faradsch Raho he was born into an ethnic Assyrian family, he lived almost his entire life in Mosul, Iraq, which has a long established community...
, Chaldean Catholic archbishop of Mosul, was found in a shallow grave in the northern city two weeks after he was kidnapped. Youssef Adel, an Syriac Orthodox
Syriac Orthodox Church
The Syriac Orthodox Church; is an autocephalous Oriental Orthodox church based in the Eastern Mediterranean, with members spread throughout the world. The Syriac Orthodox Church claims to derive its origin from one of the first Christian communities, established in Antioch by the Apostle St....
priest with Saint Peter's Church in Baghdad's Karadda neighbourhood, was killed by gunmen while travelling on a car on April 5, 2008.
On April 11, President Bush was interviewed by Cliff Kincaid of the EWTN Global Catholic Network; after being informed about the detoriating situation of the Assyirians, President Bush was quoted as saying "This is a Muslim government that has failed to protect the Christians. In fact, it discriminates against them....It’s time to order U.S. troops to protect Christian churches and believers."
Growth of Assyrian Security Forces
In October 2008, National Public Radio reported that a new phenomenon was spreading through the Assyrian Christian towns and villages of northern Iraq: Christian security forces, organized through their local churches, began manning checkpoints and working with the Iraqi police. Father Daoud Suleiman from the Assyrian town of Bartella
Bartella
Bartella is an Assyrian town located less than 13 miles east of Mosul, Iraq. The name Bartella is of Syriac origin, but its meaning is not fully agreed on by the historians...
testified that without the Christian militias, Bartella and other villages would be in much worse shape than they are now. A mysterious, media-shy, and wealthy Assyrian Sarkis Aghajan Mamendo
Sarkis Aghajan Mamendo
Sarkis Aghajan Mamendo , is an Iraqi Assyrian politician who was appointed Minister for Finance and Economy in the cabinet of Iraqi Kurdistan on 2006-05-07....
was a key player in this apparently straightforward story of a small beleaguered minority learning to stand up for itself once more. He is the finance minister for the Kurdish regional government, and he is a member of the Kurdish Democratic Party believed to be close to Kurdish Prime Minister Nechirvan Barzani. New churches are going up across the north, paid for, everyone says, by Sarkis. New schools, more than 300 new apartments for displaced Christian families from the south, an Assyrian cultural center in Bartella — the list goes on.
2009-2010 Violence
Attacks against the community began again in December 2009 in Mosul
Mosul
Mosul , is a city in northern Iraq and the capital of the Ninawa Governorate, some northwest of Baghdad. The original city stands on the west bank of the Tigris River, opposite the ancient Assyrian city of Nineveh on the east bank, but the metropolitan area has now grown to encompass substantial...
and picked in February 2010. It led to the assassination of over 20 Christians and the bombings of churches in Mosul. The attacks led to up to 4,300 Assyrians flying Mosul to the Nineveh plains
Nineveh plains
Nineveh plains is a region in the Ninawa Governorate of Iraq to the north and west of the city Mosul. The area generally consists of three districts; Tel Keppe, Al-Hamdaniya, and Al-Shikhan...
where there is an Assyrian majority population.
The people fled to the following Assyrian cities:
| Bakhdida Bakhdida Bakhdida , also known as Baghdeda, Qaraqosh, Karakosh or Al-Hamdaniya, is an Assyrian town in the northern Iraq Ninawa Governorate, located about 32 km southeast of the city of Mosul amid agricultural lands, close to the ruins of the ancient Assyrian cities Nimrud and Nineveh. It is connected... | 1,668 | Nimrud Nimrud Nimrud is an ancient Assyrian city located south of Nineveh on the river Tigris in modern Ninawa Governorate Iraq. In ancient times the city was called Kalḫu. The Arabs called the city Nimrud after the Biblical Nimrod, a legendary hunting hero .The city covered an area of around . Ruins of the city... | 210 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Tel Esqof | 558 | Ankawa Ankawa Ankawa , is an Iraqi Christian town of about 30,000 people, in practice a suburb of Arbil, Erbil Governorate in Iraqi Kurdistan, northern Iraq... | 138 |
| Alqosh Alqosh Alqōsh or Alqūsh is one of the most famous Assyrian towns of the mainly East Syrian rite in Iraq. It is located north of Mosul. The name Alqosh is derived from an Akkadian name Eil-Kushtu, where "Eil" means God and "Kushtu" means righteousness or power... | 504 | Karamlesh | 132 |
| Bashiqa Bashiqa Bashiqa , is a town located in the Al-Hamdaniya District of the Ninawa Governorate in northern Iraq. Bashiqa's residents are mostly Yazidis, Assyrian Christians and Muslims.... | 396 | Dohuk | 102 |
| Batnaya Batnaya Batnaya is an Assyrian village located 14 miles north of Mosul and around 3 miles north of Tel Keppe.The name Batnaya is of Aramaic origin derived from either "Beth Tnyay" meaning "The House of Mud" or "Beth Tnaya" meaning "The House of Assiduity".... | 378 | Tel Keppe Tel Keppe Tel Keppe , is one of the largest formerly Assyrian towns in Iraq. It is located in the Ninawa Governorate, less than 8 miles North East of Mosul in northern Iraq.-Etymology:... | 96 |
Statistics
A 1950 CIA report on Iraq showed that Assyrians comprised 4.9% of the Iraqi population during the 1940s.| Total population | Chaldean Catholic | Syrian Catholic | Jacobite | Nestorian Assyrian Church of the East The Assyrian Church of the East, officially the Holy Apostolic Catholic Assyrian Church of the East ʻIttā Qaddishtā w-Shlikhāitā Qattoliqi d-Madnĕkhā d-Āturāyē), is a Syriac Church historically centered in Mesopotamia. It is one of the churches that claim continuity with the historical... |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 165,000 | 98,000 | 25,000 | 12,000 | 30,000 |
The report goes on and states 20% of the Assyrians live in Baghdad
Baghdad
Baghdad is the capital of Iraq, as well as the coterminous Baghdad Governorate. The population of Baghdad in 2011 is approximately 7,216,040...
and 60% in Mosul
Mosul
Mosul , is a city in northern Iraq and the capital of the Ninawa Governorate, some northwest of Baghdad. The original city stands on the west bank of the Tigris River, opposite the ancient Assyrian city of Nineveh on the east bank, but the metropolitan area has now grown to encompass substantial...
.
The Iraqi Minorities Council and the Minority Rights Group International estimated that Iraq's pre-war Assyrian population was 800,000.