Nahla’s Assyrian villages to hold centennial festival in September

Yasmeen Altaji | Mar. 16, 2024 | Cover image: The seven-member festival committee stands outside of the local church in Hezany in the Nahla Valley. (Photo/Facebook via The Assyrian Villages of Nala.)

The Assyrian villages of Iraq’s Nahla Valley will host a festival marking 100 years since the villages’ resettlement by Assyrians, according to a Saturday statement following an open community meeting. The announcement came from a Facebook page called The Assyrian Villages of Nala.

What to know:

The Nahla Valley in Iraq’s Kurdistan Region is home to eight Assyrian villages.

• According to historical accounts, Assyrian survivors of what the community considers the Ottoman-led genocide of 1915, began resettling in the Nahla Valley upon their expulsion from Turkey’s Hakkari region in 1924.

• One widely cited primary telling of the violence and subsequent resettlement comes from R.S. Stafford, a British soldier stationed in Iraq in the 1930s, who also documented the Simele Massacre of 1933.

• The festival will run from September 19 to 24 this year, according to the post. A unanimously elected seven-member committee will oversee the event.

• The page did not provide further detail.

Villagers in Nahla have reported disruptions to their livelihoods by armed conflict and fractured control of the region.

• Last week, villagers reported blockage of supplies at government-run entry checkpoints to Nahla.

• The Valley also falls under Turkey’s frequent target areas in its cross-border Operation Claw Lock targeting the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) in Iraq and Syria. Turkey considers the PKK a terrorist organization.