Deraluk ( ar, ديرلوك, ku, دێرەلووک, Dêrelûk, syr, Deira d-Luqa) is a town and subdistrict in

Dohuk Governorate ar, محافظة دهوك , image_skyline = Collage_of_Dohuk_Governorate.jpg , imagesize = , image_caption = , image_flag = , image_seal = ...

Kurdistan Region Kurdistan Region ( ku, هەرێمی کوردستان, translit=Herêmî Kurdistan; ar, إقليم كردستان), abbr. KRI, is an autonomous region in Iraq comprising the four Kurdish-majority governorates of Erbil, Sulaymaniyah, Duhok ...

Iraq Iraq,; ku, عێراق, translit=Êraq officially the Republic of Iraq, '; ku, کۆماری عێراق, translit=Komarî Êraq is a country in Western Asia. It is bordered by Turkey to the north, Iran to the east, the Persian Gulf and K ...

. It is located on the Great Zab and in the district of

Amadiya Amedi or Amadiya ( ku, ئامێدی, Amêdî, ; Syriac: , Amədya), is a town in the Duhok Governorate of Kurdistan Region of Iraq. It is built on a mesa in the broader Great Zab river valley. Etymology According to Ali ibn al-Athir, the name ...

. In the town, there are churches of

Mar Mar, mar or MAR may refer to: Culture * Mar or Mor, an honorific in Syriac * Earl of Mar, an earldom in Scotland * MAA (singer) (born 1986), Japanese * Marathi language, by ISO 639-2 language code * March, as an abbreviation for the third mon ...

Khnana and Mar Gewargis.

Etymology

The name of the town is derived from "deira" ("monastery/church" in

Syriac Syriac may refer to: *Syriac language, an ancient dialect of Middle Aramaic *Sureth, one of the modern dialects of Syriac spoken in the Nineveh Plains region * Syriac alphabet ** Syriac (Unicode block) ** Syriac Supplement * Neo-Aramaic languages a ...

) and "Luqa" (" Luke" in Syriac), and thus Deraluk translates to "monastery or church of Saint Luke".

History

In 1920, Deraluk was settled by Assyrians of the Baz clan after their expulsion from the region of

Hakkari Hakkari or Hakkâri may refer to: *Hakkari (historical region), a historical region in modern-day Turkey and Iraq *Hakkâri (city), a city and the capital of Hakkâri Province, Turkey *Hakkâri Province Hakkâri Province (, tr, Hakkâri ili, ...

Turkey Turkey ( tr, Türkiye ), officially the Republic of Türkiye ( tr, Türkiye Cumhuriyeti, links=no ), is a transcontinental country located mainly on the Anatolian Peninsula in Western Asia, with a small portion on the Balkan Peninsula in ...

. It was named after a ruined monastery of Saint Luke in the vicinity. Prior to the

Simele massacre The Simele massacre, also known as the Assyrian affair, was committed by the Kingdom of Iraq, led by Bakr Sidqi, during a campaign systematically targeting the Assyrians in and around Simele in August 1933. An estimated 600 to 6,000 Assyrians ...

in 1933, Deraluk was inhabited by 130 Assyrians, many of whom were forced to flee the violence and settled along the River Khabur in Syria. Deraluk was made a ''mujamma'' (collective town) by the

Iraqi government The federal government of Iraq is defined under the current Constitution, approved in 2005, as an Islamic, democratic, federal parliamentary republic. The federal government is composed of the executive, legislative, and judicial branches, as w ...

in 1978 and settled by displaced Assyrians from Nerwa Rekan along the

Iraq–Turkey border The Iraq–Turkey border ( ku, Sînorê raqê–Tirkiye, ar, الحدود العراقية التركية, translit= alhudud aleiraqiat alturkia, tr, Irak–Türkiye sınırı) is 367 km (228 mi) in length and runs from the tripoint with ...

. Fortry-five houses were constructed for the thirty households that came from Qārō, five households from Lower Nerwa, five households from Derigni, and five households from Wela. In the following year, a church of Mar Khnana was constructed. It was used as a ''mujamma'' again in 1987–1988 during the

Anfal campaign The Anfal campaign; ku, شاڵاوی ئەنفال or the Kurdish genocide was a counterinsurgency operation which was carried out by Ba'athist Iraq from February to September 1988, at the end of the Iran–Iraq War. The campaign targeted rur ...

. At Deraluk, Kurdistan Democratic Party guerrillas seized documents pertaining to the use of biological and

chemical A chemical substance is a form of matter having constant chemical composition and characteristic properties. Some references add that chemical substance cannot be separated into its constituent elements by physical separation methods, i.e., w ...

weapons by the

Iraqi Armed Forces The Iraqi Armed Forces ( ar, القوات المسلحة العراقية romanized: ''Al-Quwwat Al-Musallahah Al-Iraqiyyah'') ( Kurdish: هێزە چەکدارەکانی عێراق) are the military forces of the Republic of Iraq. They consist ...

during the Iran-Iraq War in January 1988. On 5 December 2011, amidst the 2011 Duhok riots, alcohol shops were targeted by rioters and four were set alight and two others were ransacked. In 2012, an estimated 525 Assyrians inhabited Deraluk. Humanitarian aid was delivered to 72 displaced families from

Mosul Mosul ( ar, الموصل, al-Mawṣil, ku, مووسڵ, translit=Mûsil, Turkish: ''Musul'', syr, ܡܘܨܠ, Māwṣil) is a major city in northern Iraq, serving as the capital of Nineveh Governorate. The city is considered the second larg ...

and the Nineveh Plains by the Assyrian Aid Society in January 2015. As of 2021, 120 Assyrians with 45 families, all of whom are adherents of the Assyrian Church of the East, reside at Deraluk.

Gallery

File:Deraluk2019ha.jpg

References

Bibliography

* * Populated places in Dohuk Province Kurdish settlements in Iraq Assyrian communities in Iraq Populated places established in 1920 Subdistricts of Iraq Amadiya 1920 establishments in Iraq {{Kurdistan-geo-stub