IRAQ: Remembrance ceremony for 1933 Simele Massacre and expulsion of Suraye by ISIS from Nineveh Plains

BAGHDEDE, Iraq – Under the slogan “The blood of our martyrs is our torch in our national struggle,” the Syriac Writers Union in Iraq held a memorial ceremony on the 88^th anniversary of the Simele 1933 massacre and the 2014 expulsion of Chaldeans-Syriacs-Assyrians from the Nineveh Plain by Islamic State.

The memorial ceremony was held at the Mor Boulous church center in the Syriac city of Baghdede, Nineveh Plains. Poet Zuher Behnam Barda opened the ceremony with a poem. The head of the Syriac Writers Union Rawand Boulos held a speech expressing that “our people suffered massacre at the hands of the Iraqi army which at the time held a military and chauvinist leadership. More than four thousand innocent martyrs were massacred. At the same time, with pain in our hearts, we remember the expulsion our people from Mosul and the Nineveh Plains in its seventh year.”

Eleven Syriac poets recited poems in Syriac and Arabic.

Father Salem Catalla and the St Ephrem Choir performed Syriac church hymns.

Present were bishop of the Syriac Chaldean Catholic Church for Mosul Mor Najeeb Michael Moussa, Fr Thabet Habib, Fr Salem Catalla, the head of the Directorate for Syriac studies Cimad Salem Jajo.

Source: SyriacPress Suryoyo