Christians in Turkey

At the beginning of World War One, Christians still made up 20 percent of the population in Turkey. However in May 1915, Ottoman commanders began mass deportation of Armenians. Thousands were marched from the Anatolian borders toward Syria and Mesopotamia. Some 1.5 million died either in massacres or from starvation or deprivation.
Syriac Orthodox Christians are estimated at about 20,000, the majority living in Istanbul and the Tur Abdin plateau on the border with Syria. Syriacs migrated throughout the 20th century to Europe, fleeing first from persecution by the new secular republic, and later, from violence between Kurdish separatists rebels and the Turkish military in the southeast. Syriac Christians speak a form of Aramaic, the language of Jesus.
The Tur Abdin (the plateau of the worshipers of God) in aramaic, is a plateau were some 3000 Syriac Christians live in villages and survived up to now. Since mid 90s there were some 50.000 Christians living in this region.

Michele Borzoni

Christians in Turkey

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