Syria's Assyrian Christians Find Refuge With Turkish Neighbours

MIDYAT, Turkey -- Miydat's Assyrian Orthodox community is still encumbered with festive cookies and candied nuts from their Christmas festivities. In every home, tables groan with remnants from the recent celebrations, which for many of Midyat's residents found themselves in situations far safer than the previous holiday spent in Syria.

Often reported to be sympathetic to the regime of Syrian president Bashar Al-Assad, although all the Christians in Midyat are quick to assert their neutrality, Syria's Christian and Assyrian communities have come under an increased threat from more extreme Sunni rebel groups, like Jabhat Al-Nusra and the Islamic State of Iraq and Al-Sham (ISIS); and many have sought refuge across the border in Turkey's south-eastern provinces.

"The Islamists were kidnapping us. It's another kind of terrorism," said Kalill, a former resident of Al-Qamishli, now living as a refugee in Midyat with the help of the local Assyrian community. A journalist by trade, Kalill had been critical of the Jihadists in the north of Syria near his home. "I didn't know which day the Islamist groups would come into my home. I had been writing against them, so I was threatened," he told The Media Line.

Turkey is home to nearly 600,000 registered Syrian refugees with hundreds of thousands more living in the country without registering with the authorities. The presence of refugees from minority groups within Turkey is a 'see it to believe it' phenomenon, with most Turks and Syrian's refusing to believe they exist. Abuna Ishok Ergun, a Syriac-Orthodox priest in Midyat, says many of the Christians who end up in Midyat do so because, "In Istanbul they won't accept them as refugees because they say there is no problem."

Read full article online here:
Syria's Assyrian Christians Find Refuge With Turkish Neighbours