Syriac Member of Turkish Parliament Çelik: regional powers should take responsibility of the Simele Massacre of 1933

MARDIN, Turkey – On the occasion of the annual commemoration on August 7, Syriac Member of Turkish Parliament Tuma Çelik published a statement about the Simele Massacre of 1933 on his Twitter page.

Çelik states that “the ruling powers in Iraq and their accomplices killed more than five thousand Chaldeans-Syriacs-Assyrians during the Simele Massacre in Iraq. And more than 60 thousand people were forced to leave their villages and homes”.

Tuma Çelik, former HDP and now independent MP for Mardin, called on all Iraqi authorities to recognize the massacre and take actions and responsibility against such cruel crimes and genocides.

Simele'de hayatını kaybedenleri saygıyla anıyor bölgesel güçleri bir kez daha katliamlarla yüzleşmek için sorumluluğa davet ediyorum. pic.twitter.com/sruv54zW5e

— Tuma Çelik (@tuma_celik) August 7, 2021

On 7 August 1933, Iraqi state military forces and local allied Kurds and Arabs massacred Syriacs in the village of Simele. During that whole month of August more than 60 Syriac villages in Amadiya, Zakho, Nohadra (Dohuk), Sheikhan and Mosul, northern Iraq, were destroyed and burned.

The Syriacs were never given a safe place in Iraq and were constantly subjected to forced displacement. The latest forced displacement was when the Islamic State overran Mosul and the Nineveh Plains in 2014, forcing more than 100 thousand people to flee the area, leaving their homes, towns, villages, churches and monasteries behind. Under Islamic State rule, women and children were kidnapped, Syriac villages and towns in the Nineveh plains destroyed, and churches and monasteries desecrated or razed to the ground.

His Holiness the patriarch of the Syriac Catholic Church Mor Ignatius Yusuf III Younan, recounted in a sermon on the anniversary of the incursion of Islamic State into the Nineveh Plains, how the terrorist organization attacked the Syriac people in the Nineveh Plains and forced them to leave from their ancient homeland.

Mor Ignatius Yusuf III Younan said: “We are Natives of the countries that are now located in Mesopotamia. It is our right to live here in respect and equality with other peoples”. His Holiness urged the persons in charge of the country to protect the native Christians of Iraq.