Christians in northeast Syria face destruction with Turkish invasion – analysis

Presence of Turkish forces and allied Syrian rebels in northeast Syria put Christian communities on the line, semi-monthly editorial magazine National

Review said on Thursday. The Christians, that had made up a significant part of the Ottoman Empire’s population, was wiped out in waves of violence and most of those took refuge in northern Syria, National Review said. There are currently Arab, Kurdish, Syriac-Assyrian-Chaldean Christian communities live in northern Syria. “Residents there see history repeating itself. Videos continue to emerge of Turkish-backed Islamists committing atrocities against civilians elsewhere. Christians fled the cities of Tel Abyad and Ras al-Ayn as Turkey’s proxies stormed in shouting Allahu akbar, backed by Turkey’s military might.” Turkish-backed Syrian militias, following a similar path of the Islamic State (ISIS), attacked Christian communities, desecrated Yazidi religious sites and looted archaeological sites after Turkey took control of northern Syria’s Afrin, the magazine said. “There is no reason to think that Turkey’s proxies will act differently in the northeast, where they are now encroaching on the Assyrian villages of the Khabur.” In response to Turkey’s military incursion into northeast Syria, U.S. House of Representatives on Oct. 29 passed a resolution recognising the mass killings of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire as genocide.”Recognition of a genocide a century ago is important but will do nothing to prevent the current onslaught, which could bring the Assyrian community of the Khabur to an end altogether,” National Review said.