Deraluk
Town in Iraq
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Deraluk (Arabic: ديرلوك,[2] Kurdish: دێرەلووک, romanized: Dêrelûk,[3] Syriac: Deira d-Luqa)[4] is a town and subdistrict in Dohuk Governorate in Kurdistan Region, Iraq. It is located on the Great Zab and in the district of Amadiya.
Deraluk | |
|---|---|
Town | |
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  Deraluk Location in Iraq  Deraluk Deraluk (Iraqi Kurdistan) | |
| Coordinates: 37.05598°N 43.65188°E | |
| Country |  Iraq |
| Region |  Kurdistan Region |
| Governorate | Dohuk Governorate |
| District | Amadiya District |
| Sub-district | Deraluk |
| Population (2014)[1] | |
| • Urban | 44,448 |
| • Rural | 7,070 |
In the town, there are churches of Mar Khnana and Mar Gewargis.[5][4]
Etymology
History
In 1920, Deraluk was settled by Assyrians of the Baz clan after their expulsion from the region of Hakkari in Turkey.[4] It was named after a ruined monastery of Saint Luke in the vicinity.[4] Prior to the Simele massacre 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.[4]
Deraluk was made a mujamma (collective town) by the Iraqi government in 1978 and settled by displaced Assyrians from Nerwa and Rekan along the Iraq–Turkey border.[4] Forty-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.[4] In the following year, a church of Mar Khnana was constructed.[4]
It was used as a mujamma again in 1987–1988 during the Anfal campaign.[6] At Deraluk, Kurdistan Democratic Party guerrillas seized documents pertaining to the use of biological and chemical weapons by the Iraqi Armed Forces during the Iran-Iraq War in January 1988.[7]
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.[8] In 2012, an estimated 525 Assyrians inhabited Deraluk.[9] Humanitarian aid was delivered to 72 displaced families from Mosul and the Nineveh Plains by the Assyrian Aid Society in January 2015.[10] As of 2023, approximately 100 Assyrians, comprising 40 families, all adherents of the Assyrian Church of the East, reside in Deraluk.[11]
