The Simele Massacre (Syriac: ܦܪܡܬܐ ܕܣܡܠܐ pramta d-Simele, Arabic: مذبحة سميل maḏbaḥat Summayl) was a massacre committed by the armed forces of the Kingdom of Iraq during the systematic targeting of Assyrians in northern Iraq in August 1933. The term is used to describe not only the massacre in Simele, but also the killing spree that took place among 63 Assyrian villages in the Dohuk and Mosul districts that led to the deaths of between 600 and 3,000 Assyrians.
The Assyrian people at the time were emerging from one of the darkest periods of their history. During the Assyrian Genocide during and after World War I, more than half of their population was massacred by Ottoman Turks and Kurds.
The term 'genocide' was coined by Raphael Lemkin, who was directly influenced by the story of this massacre and the Armenian Genocide.
Read more about Simele Massacre: Targeted Villages, Aftermath, Cultural Impact and Legacy
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