Once Assyria stretched from Cyprus to Iran and from the Caucasus to Egypt. Successive invasions and massacres have diminished both the land area of Assyria and the Assyrian population, but still there has been a continuous Assyrian presence in Iraq and Syria for over 2000 years.

Before adopting Christianity, the ancient Assyrians worshipped a number of gods, including my namesake (Esther, as well as being the name of a Jewish heroine, is derived from Ishtar/Ashtoreth/Astarte, the Assyrian and Babylonian goddess of fertility, war and the morning star).  The Assyrians built temples to the goddess Ashtoreth at Nineveh (next to what is now the city of Mosul) and at Arbel (now the city of Irbil/Erbil) in present day Iraq.

The Assyrians became Christian in the first century AD, and the monasteries, churches and cathedrals they built from then onwards are part of the cultural heritage of Iraq and Syria, along with their pre-Christian temples and carvings. The Assyrian church bells have rung to celebrate Christmas each year, even when there has been little else to celebrate. Their recent history, as a minority ethnic and religious group in their homelands, has been one of persecution. 

The Assyrian and Armenian genocides of 1915-18 carried out by the Ottoman Turks (when hundreds of thousands of Assyrians died) were followed by the Simele massacre of Assyrians in Northern Iraq by Arabs and Kurds of the Iraqi Army in 1933 and the attempted obliteration of Assyrian identity by the Baath party in Iraq from 1963 onwards.

From around 2003 there were increasing attacks by Islamic groups on Assyrian Christians, then in 2014 Islamic State started a brutal rampage across the Nineveh plain in Northern Iraq. The unarmed Assyrians were forced to flee from the cities of Qaraqosh and Mosul and the surrounding villages where Assyrians had lived for centuries.

Those who had not managed to escape risked torture, abductions, attempted forced conversion and death (including by beheading or crucifixion). Other minority groups in Northern Iraq were also targeted by Islamic State.

The fate of the Yazidis was particularly horrific – men were killed, women and girls were imprisoned as sex slaves, and Yazidi boys were abducted and trained to become members of Islamic State (Cubs of the Caliphate).

In neighbouring Syria, the attacks by Islamic State on Assyrians and other Christians were severe enough to be declared genocidal by various governments around the world.  As well as attempting to destroy the Assyrian population, Islamic State also tried to wipe out all traces of Christian and pre-Christian Assyria, destroying historic monasteries and churches in Syria and Iraq, as well as ancient sculptures and other artefacts.    

Assyrians and Yazidis have been pleading for the international community to establish a safe haven for them in their ancestral lands, so they can return to rebuild their shattered communities. 

UN Goodwill Ambassador, Nadia Murad Basee, a Yazidi who escaped from Islamic State slavery, recently made a statement to the European Union: ‘We ask that the EU and all those concerned with the fate of Syria and Iraq establish a safe zone to protect the Yazidis, Christians and other vulnerable minorities in Sinjar and the Nineveh Plain,’ adding  ‘If the world can’t protect the Yazidis in our homeland, we ask Europe to give us a safe new home.’

The last few Christmases, Assyrians have spent in displaced persons camps in Iraq, or refugee camps in surrounding countries. With the gradual expulsion of Islamic State from Assyrian villages around the city of Mosul, Assyrians have been returning to their devastated homes in the Nineveh Plain.

For around 1,500 years, bells had rung from Assyrian churches at Christmas until the genocidal onslaught of Islamic State.  Restoring the churches vandalised by Islamic State, and ringing the bells once again at Christmas will be a symbolic gesture of hope for the future.

Christmas this year will still be more bitter than sweet for the Assyrians of Iraq and Syria with constant reminders of sorrow and loss, and the still-present threat from followers of extremist Islam.

The United Nations and the international community have a responsibility to protect groups subjected to attempted genocide. 

They need either asylum or a safe haven in their homelands, with the protection of a secular state, a judicial system that upholds the rights of religious and ethnic minorities, representation of minority groups in government and United Nations peacekeepers to remain until there is no longer a threat from militant Islamic groups.