Simele

Simele or Semel is a town located in the Dohuk province of Kurdistan Region in Iraq. The town is on the main road that connects the Kurdistan Region to its neighbor Turkey. It is west of Dohuk. The town had a population of 71,557 in July 2018.

Information

Simele was populated by Armenian and Assyrian refugees fleeing massacres during the Assyrian and Armenian genocides. During the Simele massacre in 1933, around three thousand Assyrians were massacred prompting many to flee the country as a consequence. The main Assyrian tribe in Simele at the time was Baz.
In 2011, the population was mostly Kurdish with a small Assyrian minority of 635 people. Around half of the Assyrian minority adhere to the Assyrian Church of the East. A small Armenian minority still exists in the town.