In northeast Syria, a Christian community struggles to survive
Before the start of Syria’s crisis in 2011, Christians made up 10–12 percent of the country’s 18 million people.
(The Christian Science Monitor) In the village of Tell Tamer in a remote area of northeast Syria, dozens of elderly Assyrian Christians gather in the local church to bid farewell to yet another member of their dwindling community. They sit quietly along two rows of wooden chairs, exchanging the occasional whisper.
“Christians have no future in Syria,” said Marlen Kalo, a middle-aged woman who attended the service. “The majority have been displaced. Those who stayed are a tiny minority. We hope that those living abroad consider coming back here and help us rebuild our country so that it is better than before. If the Christians come back, we will have a future. Otherwise we won’t. I don’t think they will come back.”
Before the start of Syria’s crisis in 2011, Christians made up 10–12 percent of the country’s 18 million people. Assyrian Christians—an ethnic as well as a religious community that traces its roots to the Assyrian Empire of ancient Mesopotamia—numbered about 30,000, concentrated in the northeast, primarily in Tell Tamer and Qamishli.
