Church reopens near Tel Tamr, Syria after 5 years of closure due to ISIS attacks

TEL TAMR, Syria (North Press)- On Saturday, the Assyrian village of Tel Baloua village, on the banks of the Khabur River, was reopened to receive worshippers and visitors again, after five years of closure due to the Islamic State’s attacks on the Assyrian villages in the countryside of the town of Tal Tamr, Syria.

In the village of Tal Baloua, 10km south of the town of Tal Tamr, 60-year-old Umm Ninos reopened Mar Qariqs and Mar Shamoun bin Sabbagh church, which had been closed since ISIS attacks in February 2015, to clean it in preparation for receiving visitors and religious rituals.

Umm Ninos told North Press that “our village’s church was beautiful, clean and tidy, but ISIS burnt it with all its contents, including the Bible, and destroyed parts of it. Now we are cleaning it to receive the visitors and the worshipers again.”

Only Umm Ninos, her husband, and another local man remain in the village, while the rest migrated abroad, like many other Assyrians, due to ISIS attacks on Assyrian villages.

The municipality of Tel Tamr sent water tanks to wash the church, while displaced people living in the village from the countryside of Sere Kaniye (Ras al-Ain) welcomed the reopening of the church. Many of them helped Umm Ninos in cleaning the church.

Umm Ninos hopes that everything returns to as it was before, with the return of the displaced to their homes, with church bells ringing and life returning to the Assyrian villages.

Before the opening of Tel Baloua village church, several other Assyrian churches reopened on the banks of the Khabur River, while other villages are seeking to reopen the remaining churches that were spared from ISIS attacks.

ISIS destroyed 11 Assyrian churches on the banks of the Khabur during its attacks on the countryside of Tel Tamer in 2015. They also kidnapped 231 Assyrians, most of whom were women, children, and elderly people.

Reported by Sozdar Youssef, editing by Lucas Chapman