Barwari

Barwari (ܒܪܘܪ, Berwarî) is a region in the Hakkari mountains in northern Iraq and southeastern Turkey. The region is inhabited by Assyrians and Kurds, and was formerly also home to a number of Jews prior to their emigration to Israel in 1951. It is divided between northern Barwari in Turkey, and southern Barwari in Iraq. The name of the region is derived from "berwar" ("slope [of a hill]" in Kurdish). The British archaeologist Austen Henry Layard visited Barwari Bala in 1846 and noted that some villages in the region were inhabited by both Assyrians and Kurds. Assyrians of Barwari Bala were rayah (subjects) of the Kurdish emirate of lower Barwari, whilst Assyrians in Barwari Shwa'uta were partly semi-independent and partly rayah. In the 1840s, a series of massacres of Assyrians in Barwari Bala were perpetrated by Kurdish tribes under the leadership of Bedir Khan Beg, Mir of Bohtan, resulting in the death or expulsion of half of the population. The region was estimated by American Presbyterian missionaries to contain 32 Assyrian villages, with 420 Nestorian families, in 1870. Amidst the Assyrian genocide in the First World War, in 1915, most Assyrian villages in Barwari Bala were destroyed and their inhabitants slaughtered by Turkish reservists and Kurdish tribesmen led by Rashid Bey, Mir of lower Barwari, whilst the survivors took refuge in the vicinity of Urmia and Salamas in Iran. Assyrian villages in northern Barwari were similarly pillaged and their inhabitants massacred. Until the genocide in 1915, northern Barwari was inhabited by approximately 9000 Assyrians, whilst there were c. 5000 Assyrians in southern Barwari. Survivors were transferred under British protection from Iran to the refugee camp at Baqubah in Iraq in 1918, where they remained until most families attempted to return to their villages in 1920. As a consequence of the partition of the Ottoman Empire, most of Hakkari was allocated to Turkey, which prevented Assyrians from returning, whilst Assyrians in southern Barwari in Iraq were permitted to return to their original villages.