Tell Tamer

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تل تمر / Tall Tamr
Girê Xurma
Tell Tamer
Basic data
Country Syria

Governorate

al-Hasakah
ISO 3166-2 SY-HA
Residents 7285 (2004)

Tell Tamer ( Arabic تل تمر, DMG Tall Tamr ; Syriac-Aramaic ܬܠ ܬܡܪ; Kurdish Til Temir or Girê Xurma , other spelling also Tall Tamer ) is a village and a district ( Nahiya ) on the Chabur River in northeast Syria , al-Hasakah governorate , about 40 km north of the city of al-Hasakah . Chabur Assyrians , Arabs and Kurds live in Tell Tamer . Both Tell Tamer and Girê Xurma translate to mean hill of dates .

Population and ethnic composition

There are contradicting statements about the ethnic composition of the city. According to the Lebanese newspaper Al-Akhbar , Assyrians made up two-thirds of Tell Tamer's population of 30,000 before the civil war in Syria . According to the data of the National Census, on the other hand, the total population of the city in 2004 comprised only about 7,285 people. Scientific estimates from before the civil war put the number of Assyrians across Syria belonging to the Assyrian Church of the East at around 30,000 individuals, of whom around 15,000 to 20,000 are believed to live along the Chabur River . Estimates of the development of the population of Tell Tamer from the same source: 1,244 (1936); 1,250 (1960); 2,994 (1981); 5,030 (1993); 5,216 (1994); 5,405 (1995). After the end of the Daesh (IS) reign of terror , Tell Tamer is the only one of the Assyrian villages on the Chabur in 2019 with around 400 of the former 3,000 Christian residents in which more than 100 Assyrian Christians still live and also the only one in which more than a tenth of the pre-war Christian population lives. According to a report from the end of 2019, only Assyrian Christians returned to Tell Tamer, while there are no other residents - Kurdish and Arab Muslims. In 2018, a total of around 900 lived in the villages on the Chabur of former 10,000 Assyrian Christians, and there were only regular services in one church.

History before the civil war

The city was in the 1930s by Assyrians-Aramaic-Chaldeans from Iraq established that due to the massacre of Simele from Iraq fled. Its original inhabitants are therefore Assyrians of the Tyari tribe , who came via Iraq from the Hakkari region of Turkey . In the 1960s, almost the entire population of the place consisted of Assyrians. In the 1960s, the village became a town when the large landowners were expropriated and the land on the Chabur River was distributed to mostly Muslim, often Kurdish, small farmers. The majority of the 2011 population consisted of Kurds and sedentary Arab Bedouins . Local Assyrian leaders estimated the proportion of their own population group to be around 20% in the 1990s.

Syrian civil war

An Assyrian exodus from the city began in November 2012 when soldiers from the Free Syrian Army threatened to invade the city. When the so-called Islamic State took control of the streets in the immediate vicinity, emigration increased. More than 500 Assyrian families fled the city.

After the so-called Islamic State conquered the city of ar-Raqqa , some Assyrians fled from there and from ath-Thaura to Tell Tamer. According to the Syriac International News Agency , the so-called Islamic State attacked an Assyrian settlement in the city in May 2014 , prompting the Assyrians to call on the Kurdish People's Defense Units (YPG) for help.

From February 23 to 26, 2015, IS gangs kidnapped around 350 Assyrians from the area around Tell Tamer, some of whom they released in March.

Ivana Hoffmann was killed in Tell Tamer on March 7, 2015 . Hoffmann was a German communist from Duisburg who, as a member of the Marxist-Leninist Communist Party of Northern Kurdistan-Turkey (MLKP ), fought alongside members of the Kurdish People's Defense Units (YPG) and Women's Defense Units (YPJ). She is considered the first German and first foreign woman to be killed in the armed struggle against IS. Tell Tamer became the base of a Christian women's unit of the Syriac (Assyrian) military council , which was formed to protect against Islamist forces and their Turkish allies. On October 9, 2019, the Turkish army took Tell Tamer under fire. Following an agreement between the Syrian Democratic Forces and the government, Syrian government troops marched into Tell Tamer on October 14.

Surname

The name Tell Tamer is derived from the Arabic or Syrian-Aramaic words “Tell / Tella” (both means “hill”) and “Tamer / Tamra”, both means “date.” So Tell Tamer means “date hill”.

Daughter of the city

Tell Tamer is the birthplace of the Assyrian singer Juliana Jendo , the Assyrian singer Adwar Mousa and the Arab singer Omar Souleyman .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Li Bajaroka Til Temirê teqîn ( ku ) Retrieved on 27 October of 2019.
  2. ↑ a b Husen Omar: Li Til Temir şer û pevçûn germ bûne (Hat nûkirin) ( ku ) Retrieved October 27, 2019.
  3. ↑ a b c Ayham Merhi: Tell Tamr: Assyrians cling to their homeland despite threats ( Memento of November 10, 2014 in the Internet Archive ). Al-Achbar , November 7, 2014.
  4. ↑ 2004 Census, Syrian Central Bureau of Statistics
  5. ^ A b Alberto M. Fernandez: Dawn at Tell Tamir. P. 37
  6. ^ Alberto M. Fernandez: Dawn at Tell Tamir. P. 30
  7. ^ Alberto M. Fernandez: Dawn at Tell Tamir. Pp. 43-44
  8. ↑ Otmar Oehring: On the situation and perspectives of Christians in north and north-east Syria. Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung, Berlin 2019. pp. 4, 33, tables in the appendix pp. 82–85.
  9. ^ A b Andrea Backhaus: The Christian fighters of Tell Tamer. Die Zeit , November 14, 2019.
  10. ↑ Ben Hubbard: 'There Are No Girls Left': Syria's Christian Villages Hollowed Out by ISIS. New York Times , August 15, 2018.
  11. ^ Alberto M. Fernandez: Dawn at Tell Tamir: The Assyrian Christian Survival on the Khabur River. Assyrian International News Agency, p. 41.
  12. ^ Alberto M. Fernandez: Dawn at Tell Tamir. P. 43.
  13. ↑ The Syrian Christians in Northeast Syria. Mar Gabriel Association, 2006, accessed April 21, 2020.
  14. ^ Assyrian citizens called the YPG to defend them against ISIS - Syriac International News Agency Syriac International News Agency. In: Syriac International News Agency. Retrieved February 25, 2015 .
  15. ↑ Isil frees abducted 19 Christians. The Telegraph , March 2, 2015.
  16. ↑ IS releases 24 Assyrian Christians so far. SOHR, accessed March 3, 2015 .
  17. ↑ First German dies in battle with IS terrorists. Stern , March 9, 2015.
  18. ^ Syrian regime forces push towards Turkey border after SDF deal. The Defense Post, October 14, 2019.

Coordinates: 36 ° 39 ′  N , 40 ° 22 ′  E