Jilu

Jīlū was a district located in Hakkari region of upper Mesopotamia. Before 1915 Jīlū was home to Christian Assyrians, as well as a minority of Kurds. There were 20 Assyrian villages in this district. The area was traditionally divided into Greater and Lesser Jīlū, and Ishtāzin - each with its own Malik, and consisting of a number of Assyrian villages. In the summer of 1915, during the Assyrian Genocide, Jīlū was surrounded and attacked by Turkish troops and neighboring Kurdish tribes under the leadership of Agha Sūtū of Oramar. After a brief struggle to maintain their positions, the Assyrian inhabitants of Jīlū were forced to flee to Salmas in Iran along with other refugees from the Hakkari highlands. Today their descendants live all over the world including Iraq, Syria, Iran, Lebanon, Russia, Georgia, the USA, Australia, Europe, Cuba, Uruguay, Chile and Brazil. In Syria's al-Hasakah Governorate there are two villages, Tell-Gorān and Abū-Tīnā, established in 1935 by Jīlū refugees from Iraq on the banks of the Khabur River.