With what is going on, pretty soon there will be no Assyrians living on their ancient lands.
Glavin: Assyrians are the forgotten players in Mideast carnage
TERRY GLAVIN
More from Terry Glavin
Published on: June 8, 2016 | Last Updated: June 8, 2016 11:57 AM EDT
Displaced Assyrians, who had fled their hometowns due to Islamic State Group (ISIL) attacks, take part in a prayer at the Ibrahim-al Khalil Melkite Greek Catholic church in Damascus on March 1, 2015. LOUAI BESHARA / AFP/GETTY IMAGES
SHAREADJUSTCOMMENTPRINT
They are the original people of Mesopotamia’s cradle of civilization, the indigenous people of ancient Sumer and Babylon, and they’ve been around for at least 5,000 years. From their heartland on the Nineveh Plains and the Upper Tigris in what is now the transboundary region of Syria, Turkey, Iran and Iraq, their empires waxed and waned down through the centuries from the Caucasus Mountains to Cyprus and Egypt and deep into the Arabian Peninsula.
The Assyrians were among the world’s first peoples to adopt Christianity, and they still speak varieties of Aramaic, the language of Christ and his apostles. They survived a series of genocidal anti-Christian frenzies during the Ottoman Empire’s final convulsions a century ago, and again in the 1930s. They survived the persecutions and ethnic cleansings waged against them by Iraq’s Saddam Hussein and by the Iranian Khomeinists. But their survival now, as a distinct people, looks bleak.
There were perhaps 1.5 million Assyrians holding out in the region at the close of the 20th century. Two years ago, Minority Rights Group International reckoned their numbers in Iraq had dwindled to maybe 350,000 people. There are slightly fewer – estimates are wildly conflicting – in Syria.
With Syria’s ongoing destruction, mainly at the hands of Syrian President Bashar Assad and his Russian and Iranian allies, and with the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) carrying out its bloody jihad in Iraq from Mosul to Fallujah and the outskirts of Baghdad, the Assyrians are again wandering the roads of the Middle East. They’re huddled in makeshift displaced-persons camps or fleeing as United Nations’ refugees to the four corners of the Earth.
Continue reading at:
Glavin: Assyrians are the forgotten players in Mideast carnage?
Glavin: Assyrians are the forgotten players in Mideast carnage
TERRY GLAVINMore from Terry Glavin
Published on: June 8, 2016 | Last Updated: June 8, 2016 11:57 AM EDT
Displaced Assyrians, who had fled their hometowns due to Islamic State Group (ISIL) attacks, take part in a prayer at the Ibrahim-al Khalil Melkite Greek Catholic church in Damascus on March 1, 2015. LOUAI BESHARA / AFP/GETTY IMAGES
SHAREADJUSTCOMMENTPRINT
They are the original people of Mesopotamia’s cradle of civilization, the indigenous people of ancient Sumer and Babylon, and they’ve been around for at least 5,000 years. From their heartland on the Nineveh Plains and the Upper Tigris in what is now the transboundary region of Syria, Turkey, Iran and Iraq, their empires waxed and waned down through the centuries from the Caucasus Mountains to Cyprus and Egypt and deep into the Arabian Peninsula.
The Assyrians were among the world’s first peoples to adopt Christianity, and they still speak varieties of Aramaic, the language of Christ and his apostles. They survived a series of genocidal anti-Christian frenzies during the Ottoman Empire’s final convulsions a century ago, and again in the 1930s. They survived the persecutions and ethnic cleansings waged against them by Iraq’s Saddam Hussein and by the Iranian Khomeinists. But their survival now, as a distinct people, looks bleak.
There were perhaps 1.5 million Assyrians holding out in the region at the close of the 20th century. Two years ago, Minority Rights Group International reckoned their numbers in Iraq had dwindled to maybe 350,000 people. There are slightly fewer – estimates are wildly conflicting – in Syria.
With Syria’s ongoing destruction, mainly at the hands of Syrian President Bashar Assad and his Russian and Iranian allies, and with the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) carrying out its bloody jihad in Iraq from Mosul to Fallujah and the outskirts of Baghdad, the Assyrians are again wandering the roads of the Middle East. They’re huddled in makeshift displaced-persons camps or fleeing as United Nations’ refugees to the four corners of the Earth.
Continue reading at:
Glavin: Assyrians are the forgotten players in Mideast carnage?
