as-Sarcha

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الصرخة / aṣ-Ṣarḫa
بخعة / Baḫʿa
as-Sarcha
as-Sarcha (Syria)
as-Sarcha
as-Sarcha
Coordinates 33 ° 53 '  N , 36 ° 34'  E Coordinates: 33 ° 53 '  N , 36 ° 34'  E
Basic data
Country Syria

Governorate

Rif Dimashq
ISO 3166-2 SY-RD
height 1500 m
Residents 1440 (2004)

As-Sarcha or Bachʿa ( Arabic الصرخة al-Sarkha orبخعة Bakhʽa , Syriac ܒܟܥܐ, Aramaic בכעא; also Bakhʽah ) is a place in Syria . It is located about 70 km northeast of Damascus and 5 km from Maalula at 1500 m above sea level in the Qalamun Mountains, which are part of the Anti-Lebanon . Until they were expelled by the civil war in Syria , the residents of as-Sarcha spoke a dialect of the New West Aramaic language , which was only spoken in two other villages. According to the census, 1,440 people lived in as-Sarcha in 2004, the majority of them Sunni Muslims and a smaller proportion of Christians who belonged to the Greek Orthodox Church of Antioch . Today the place no longer has any inhabitants.

Attractions

In the middle of the village there is an old Greek Orthodox church , the St. Andrew's Church . However, a significant part of the Christians from as-Sarcha emigrated to Maalula. Numerous ancient water channels can also be visited, which were used to irrigate the fields and which were fed from springs in the upper area of ​​the valley. The house of Mohamed Masoud Hamama, who moved to Damascus in the middle of the 20th century, came from the first half of the 20th century. Many of the town's residents later lived most of the time in Damascus and only in the summer in as-Sarcha - similar to what was the case with Maalula. The population in as-Sarcha, officially 1,440 people, grew to 4,000 to 7,000 people in the summer.

economy

As-Sarcha lived from irrigated agriculture as well as from classic cultivation with irrigation through rain. Mainly fruits such as apples, cherries, apricots and grapes were grown, as well as vegetables and grains. There was also cattle and poultry farming. Many of the residents worked in Damascus.

In the Syrian civil war

Since the Syrian civil war, none of the residents have lived in as-Sarcha, and over 90% of the houses have been destroyed.

According to reports by the opposition online medium Damascusv.com, there were protests against Assad in al-Sarcha in 2011 , and residents of the town fought in the armed opposition. At the end of 2013, as-Sarcha came under the control of the rebels, and from here units of the Islamist al-Nusra Front attacked the neighboring, predominantly Christian town of Maalula several times from September 2013, repeatedly occupied it briefly and executed several residents there until they took Maalula whole on December 3, 2013. On April 14, 2014, the government troops, with the support of the Lebanese Shiite militia Hezbollah , succeeded in retaking both the destroyed as-Sarcha and the equally devastated Maalula and driving out the Islamists. According to a report by the opposition media El Dorar Al Shamiyya (الدرر الشامية) According to the "Qalamun Media Center", the Assad government issued a decree by which the village was converted into a military zone, the residents were evicted and all houses were then bulldozed by the Syrian army. According to Damascusv.com, however, it is the government-allied Hezbollah that has established itself in the ruins of al-Sarchas and uses the site for military movements with nearby Lebanon . According to this, Hezbollah is what prevents the displaced residents from returning to their homes. Recordings from the end of 2018 show the village destroyed and deserted.

Aramaic language dying out due to the war

The until 2013 only in as-Sarcha, Maalula and Dschubb-'Adin (other transcription Jubb'adin ) spoken Westaramäische is threatened, according to the originating from Maalula linguists George Saarur extinction. A decisive role here is played by the fact that the villagers no longer live in their former homeland, but in an Arabic-speaking environment where the children only grow up with Arabic.

literature

  • Werner Arnold : The New West Aramaic. 5 volumes. Harrassowitz, Wiesbaden ( Semitica Viva 4),
  • Eli Smith, Edward Robinson: Biblical Researches in Palestine, Mount Sinai and Arabia Petraea: A Journal of Travels in the Year 1838 , 3. Crocker and Brewster, 1841.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Damascusv: القلمون الغربي: أهالي بخعة مُهجرين من منازلهم للعام الخامس على التوالي. August 18, 2019, accessed April 22, 2020 (Arabic).
  2. ^ Syria rebels withdraw from the ancient Christian town of Al-Sarkha. BBC News, September 6, 2013.
  3. ↑ Islamists defeat two Christian villages in Syria, 13 people killed ( Memento from December 7, 2013 in the Internet Archive ). Barnabas Fund, October 29, 2013.
  4. ^ Syria rebels driven from Christian town of Maaloula. BBC News, April 14, 2014.
  5. ↑ نظام الأسد يعلن بلدة "بخعة" بالقلمون منطقة عسكرية ويطرد جميع سكانها. In: El Dorar Al Shamiyya. May 9, 2014, accessed April 22, 2020 (Arabic).
  6. ↑ Destroyed Bacha'a. Help for the Aramaean village Maalula eV, December 6th, 2018 with a linked YouTube video Destroyed Bacha'a in Syria .
  7. ↑ Language of Christ in Danger. George Saarur warns that Aramaic has become a language of the ancients. Wiener Zeitung, June 1, 2019.