Tell Tamer


Tell Tamer and the major road between al-Hasakah and Diyarbakır, the town is a transport hub of major importance.

Etymology

The name of the town, "Tell Tamer", is derived from the Arabic and Aramaic words "tell/tella", both meaning "hill", and "tamer/tamra", both meaning "date". The name of the town therefore means "Hill of Dates".

Geography and climate

In the Upper Khabur Valley of Jazira in northeastern Syria, Tell Tamer is situated on the left bank of Khabur River, just south of the small Zirgan river's estuary. About to the east, the landscape ascends to the volcanic basalt plateau Ard al-Shaykh.
Tell Tamer lies on a direct line between the city of Ras al-Ayn some to the northwest and the provincial capital al-Hasakah some to the southeast. The intersection with the M4 highway and the nearby river crossing make Tell Tamer an essential transport hub.

History

Settled in the 1930s by Iraqi Assyrian refugees fleeing the Simele massacre in Iraq, who moved to French controlled Syria and settled in a 25 km stretch of the Khabur River in 35 settlements.

Syrian Civil War

An Assyrian exodus from the town began in November 2012, when Free Syrian Army soldiers threatened to invade the town. The exodus further continued when the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria took control of nearby roads just outside the town.
In October 2013, four Assyrians were stopped while driving in a car and kidnapped by ISIL.
According to the Syriac International News Agency, in May 2014, ISIL attacked an Assyrian village, which prompted the Assyrians to call the Kurdish People's Protection Units to help protect them.
Since ISIL militants captured the city of Raqqa, some Assyrians from there and from Al-Thawrah fled to Tell Tamer as refugees. However, more than 500 Assyrian families have also fled the town. Many Assyrians from the town emigrated mainly to the United States, Europe and Canada.
In February 2015 the town was taken by the Islamic State militia, resulting in the abduction of about 90 residents. during the al-Hasakah offensive. Several thousand residents fled the city, mostly to the city of al-Hasakah.
On 23 February 2015, ISIL kidnapped around 220 Assyrians from villages surrounding Tell Tamer, and by 26 February, that number had increased to 350. On 1 March, ISIL released 19 of the kidnapped Assyrians. On 24 March 5 more Assyrian hostages were released, raising the number of released Assyrian hostages to 24.
On 11 December 2015, three truck bombs killed 60 people and injured more than 80.
On 14 October 2019, the Syrian army deployed to Tell Tamer after the Syrian Government reached an agreement with the Syrian Democratic Forces.

Demographics

Its original inhabitants are Assyrians from the Upper Tyari tribe, who came to the area from Hakkari region in Turkey via Iraq. As late as the 1960s, they still comprised virtually the entire population of the town. The majority of the town's modern population is composed of by Arabs and Kurds, while local Assyrian leaders in the 1990s estimated their own community's presence in the town to be around 20%.
Historical population estimates are as follows: 1,244 ; 1,250 ; 2,994 ; 5,030 ; 5,216 ; 5,405.
The pre-war scholarly estimates actually placed the total number of Assyrians belonging to the Assyrian Church of the East living all over of Syria at around 30,000 individuals, with between 15,000 and 20,000 of them living along the Khabur.

Religion

The Assyrian "Church of Our Lady", located in the Old Town, at a prominent place near the actual Tell, serves as the center of the Assyrian community. In the early 1980s the original church built of mud-brick in the 1930s was broken down and replaced by a new Italianate-style building. A large green-domed brick mosque built in the 1970s serves the growing Muslim community just to the south of the town center.

Notable people

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