I was 11 years old the first time I was told Assyrians don't exist by a friend. I got home, slumped on a stool and snapped open a packet of prawn cocktail crisps. Assyrians are an Indigenous ethnic group from West Asia, tracing our ancestry to an ancient people. Parts of Syria, Turkey, Iran and Iraq make up our homeland. We speak the Neo-Aramaic Assyrian language.
Every year on 7 August, Assyrians around the world commemorate one of the darkest chapters in their history. Yet outside their communities, the date passes almost unnoticed. There are memorial ceremonies. Candles are lit. Names are read aloud. Families remember grandparents who never returned home. But beyond those circles, there is mostly silence.
(AINA) -- For decades, the world has heard repeated claims that northern Iraq is a region of stability, security, and coexistence. However, many Assyrians living in their ancestral homeland continue to express serious concerns about intimidation, restrictions on their freedoms, and growing pressures that threaten their ability to preserve their identity, voice, and presence in the land of their...
Three Christian political parties on Wednesday called on Prime Minister Ali Al-Zaidi and Nineveh Governor Abdul Qader Al-Dakhil to halt ongoing land distribution measures in the Nineveh Plains, a historic homeland for several of Iraq's Christian communities, warning they could lead to demographic change in the area.
More than 2,500 years after the fall of the Assyrian Empire, archaeological discoveries continue to reveal new details about its powerful kings and the grandeur of its capital. In July 2026, a rare, well-preserved inscription stone was unearthed in Iraq detailing the achievements of the powerful Assyrian king Ashurbanipal.
President Masoud Barzani received His Beatitude Patriarch Mar Polis III Nona, Patriarch of the Chaldean Church in Iraq and the world, on Monday, according to a statement from the Barzani Headquarters. During the meeting, Patriarch Mar Polis III Nona expressed his gratitude and appreciation for President Barzani's continued efforts to protect and support the rights of Christians and all ethnic and...
A dispute over the registration of around 1,800 residential plots in the Christian-majority town of Tel Kaif in Iraq's northern Nineveh province has reached Baghdad, with Christian lawmakers in the federal parliament demanding a halt to the process, arguing the land is being distributed to Arab citizens in violation of the constitution.
Bucharest -- The 14th World Congress of Syriac [modern Assyrian] Studies, also called Symposium Syriacum, opened on Monday at the Palace of Parliament in Bucharest, Romania, bringing together more than 400 scholars and specialists from 33 countries and 176 universities to examine the history, language, theology, and cultural heritage of one of the world's oldest Christian traditions.
On August 3, 2014, the world awoke to one of the most horrific crimes in modern Iraqi history, when the Islamic State (ISIS) terrorist organization overran the district of Sinjar and its surrounding areas, committing atrocious crimes against the Yezidi community.
Inanna Sarkis, actress, director, and internet star with tens of millions of followers, is trading the feed for the pages with her graphic novel debut, Inanna: The Name She Lost. This story reimagines the ancient Mesopotamian goddess of love and war as a woman in modern-day San Francisco with nothing but a name and a rage she can't explain.
Amid growing concern for the survival of Christianity in Iraq, the country's bishops are set to assess a new scheme helping Christian families who fled jihadist terror to return. Chaldean Archbishop Bashar Warda of Erbil told Catholic Charity Aid to the Church in Need (ACN) that the country's bishops will be meeting next month to discuss the government plan aimed at encouraging Christians to come...
He is a Church father whose name rarely appears in catechism classes, whose writings are scarcely known outside academic circles, and yet whose work shaped the way generations of Christians encountered the Gospel. Nearly eighteen centuries after his death, Tatian--the second-century Assyrian Christian thinker and disciple of St.
(AINA) -- The historical relationship between the designations Assyria, Syria, and Syriac has long occupied a central place in discussions of Near Eastern history, historical linguistics, and communal identity.
Glane, Netherlands (AINA) -- An Assyrian Genocide memorial has been erected at the St. Ephrem Monastery in Glane, Netherlands. This is the 23rd Assyrian Genocide monument in the world. The Assyrian Genocide occurred between 1915 and 1918 during World War One, and was perpetrated by Ottoman Turkey, with the help of Kurds, who were hired as the henchmen of Turkey.
(AINA) -- The Assyrian Arts Institute (AAI) is an organization founded by Nora Betyousef Lacey in 2017 and claims to support Assyrian arts. AAI has sponsored a few events since its founding, including an Assyrian women's choir.
(AINA) -- On July 12 Iraqi president Abdul Latif Rashid repealed the decree recognizing the appointment of Cardinal Louis Raphael Sako as head of the Chaldean Catholic Church and which appointed him to the office of the waqf (وقف), the endowment which oversees all church property. The details of the events leading up to this action are exhaustively covered in this report by MEMRI.
(AINA) -- For decades, the world has heard repeated claims that northern Iraq is a region of stability, security, and coexistence. However, many Assyrians living in their ancestral homeland continue to express serious concerns about intimidation, restrictions on their freedoms, and growing pressures that threaten their ability to preserve their identity, voice, and presence in the land of their...
(AINA) -- Referring to Assyrians solely as "Christians" does not accurately represent an indigenous people with a distinct history, culture, language, and national identity. Christianity is an important part of Assyrian heritage and has played a significant role in Assyrian history, but it does not replace, define, or erase the Assyrian identity.
An ancient Persian inscription, preserved since the inauguration of the Theatro Municipal do Rio de Janeiro in 1909, was finally deciphered after remaining untranslated for about 117 years. Furthermore, the discovery was made by professors Alex Mazzanti, from the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ), and Matheus Treuk, from the State University of Rio de Janeiro (Uerj).
On 10 June 2026, the NEAstr project team held its second workshop, on the theme of 'Late antique astronomical sciences in medieval compendia'. Few pre-medieval witnesses of late antique scientific works survive, and most manuscripts available to scholars were copied centuries after the composition of the texts.