ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Kurdistan Region President Nechirvan Barzani on Friday paid tribute to the victims of the 1933 Simele massacre on the 93rd anniversary of Assyrian Martyrs' Day, asserting that the Region will remain "a shared homeland" for all its communities.
"On the 93rd anniversary of Assyrian Martyrs' Day, we send greetings of respect and loyalty to the souls of the martyrs and innocent victims of the Simele massacre," President Barzani said in a post on X.
“While emphasizing the preservation and deepening of pluralistic culture, coexistence, and mutual acceptance, all components [of society] affirm that Kurdistan will forever remain the shared homeland of everyone," he added.
Each year, Assyrians commemorate Assyrian Martyrs' Day on August 7, designated in 1970 to mark the Simele massacre - when armed forces of the then-Kingdom of Iraq carried out a campaign primarily between August 7 and 11, 1933, targeting some 63 Assyrian villages in present-day Nineveh and Duhok provinces.
A 2003 report by the International Federation for Human Rights put the death toll at around 3,000.
Assyrians are among the oldest indigenous groups in Mesopotamia, with a history spanning more than 6,700 years, tracing their roots to ancient Mesopotamia - modern-day Iraq, southeast Turkey, northeast Syria, and northwest Iran.
Modern Assyrians adhere almost entirely to Eastern Christianity, divided across four major ecclesial traditions - the Chaldean Catholic Church, the Syriac Orthodox and Syriac Catholic churches, and the Assyrian Church of the East and Ancient Church of the East.
In the Kurdistan Region, Assyrians have established a deep-rooted presence, primarily in Erbil and Duhok provinces, where they inhabit dozens of ancestral villages.
Following the 2003 invasion of Iraq and the Islamic State (ISIS) campaign across the Nineveh plains in 2014, the Region served as a crucial safe haven for tens of thousands of displaced Assyrians who fled targeted religious persecution elsewhere in the country.
The regional political structure also reserves five of the 111 seats in the Kurdistan Region's parliament for Christian minority representatives, ensuring formal parliamentary engagement.
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