Syria: Three killed in suicide attack on meeting attended by Patriarch

Qamishli

Three people were killed by a suicide attack yesterday during a religious meeting organized in Qamishli in northern Syria, to commemorate the 'Assyrian genocide' of 1915, by the Ottoman army. No organisation has claimed responsibility yet. According to local sources the suicide bomber tried to enter the hall where people were gathered but was stopped by security forces, and he detonated himself among them.

The meeting had been called to commemorate the massacre of 1915, also known as the 'Sayfo massacre', carried out by the Ottoman army during the First World War. According to the estimates by historians, the Assyrian victims of the massacre were about 250,000 although some sources believe that the dead were 750,000. The killings by the Ottoman forces took place around the same time as the Armenian and Greek genocides.

The gathering was attended by the head of the Syriac Orthodox Church, Patriarch Ignatius Ephraim II. The security forces belonged to the Sotoro, a Christian militia based in Syria's northeast. On June 19 the Patriarch presided over an event in Qamishli in which an Assyrian genocide memorial was inaugurated.

Control of the Kurdish-majority city is split between Kurdish militia and pro-government fighters.

Source: Fides