ASIA/SYRIA - Three people killed in a suicide attack, Patriarch Ignatius Ephraim II escapes the bombing

Qamishli (Agenzia Fides) - Three people were killed by a suicide attack yesterday during a religious meeting organized in Qamishli in northern Syria, to commemorate the "Assyrian genocideof 1915, by the Ottoman army. According to local sources of Fides, the suicide attacker tried to enter the hall where people were gathered but was stopped by local security forces, and he detonated himself among them.
The meeting wanted to celebrate the massacre of 1915, also known as the "Sayfo massacre", carried out by the Ottoman army during the First World War. According to the estimates of historians, the Assyrian victims of the massacre were about 250,000 although some sources believe that the dead were 750,000. The celebration was attended by the head of the Syriac Orthodox Church, Patriarch Ignatius Ephraim II. The security forces belonged to the Sotoro, a Christian militia based in Syria's northeast. The attack, which is not the first in the city of Qamishli, has not been claimed.
On June 19 the Patriarch presided, an event in Qamishli in which an Assyrian genocide memorial was inaugurated.
Control of the Kurdish-majority city is split between Kurdish militia and pro-government fighters. (PA) (Agenzia Fides 20/06/2016)

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