to the Joshua Project, there are about 3,000 Assyrians in Uruguay. Argentina Next to Uruguay, in Argentina the Syriac Orthodox Church counts with a Patriarchal Vicar. However, the actual number of Assyrians/Syriacs is hard to know because the Argentine Census does not ask for ethnicity. Furthermore, their assimilation rate is very high, as it happens with other Middle Eastern communities settled in the country. There is Assyrian/Syriac presence in Buenos Aires, La Plata, Córdoba, Salta and Frías. In the past, intellectuals like Farid Nazha went into exile in Argentina. Although 2,000 Assyrians/Syriacs are listed in Argentina, the actual number may be higher. Europe Belgium Assyrians arrived in Belgium primarily as refugees from the Turkish towns of Midyat and Mardin in Tur Abdin. Most belong to the Syriac Orthodox Church, but some belong to the Assyrian Church of the East and the Chaldean Catholic Church. Their three main settlements are in the Brussels municipalities of Saint-Josse-ten-Noode (where their municipal councilman, Christian Democrat Ibrahim Erkan, is originally from Turkey) and Etterbeek, Liège and Mechelen. Two more councilmen were elected in Etterbeek on October 8, 2006: the Liberal Sandrine Es (whose family is from Turkey) and the Christian Democrat Ibrahim Hanna (from Syria's Khabur region). Flemish author August Thiry wrote Mechelen aan de Tigris (Mechelen on the Tigris) about Assyrian refugees from Hassana in the southeastern Turkish district of Silopi; municipal candidate Melikan Kucam is one of them. In the October 14, 2012 municipal elections, Kucam was elected in Mechelen as a member of the Flemisch nationalists N-VA. France An estimated 20,000 Assyrians live in France, primarily concentrated in the northern French suburbs of Sarcelles (where several thousand Chaldean Catholics live) and in Gonesse and Villiers-le-Bel. They are from several villages in southeastern Turkey. Germany The number of Assyrians in Germany is estimated at 100,000. Most Assyrian immigrants and their descendants in Germany live in Munich, Wiesbaden, Paderborn, Essen, Bietigheim-Bissingen, Ahlen, Göppingen, Köln, Hamburg, Berlin, Augsburg and Gütersloh. Since they were persecuted throughout the 20th century, many Assyrians arrived from Turkey seeking a better life. The first large wave arrived during the 1960s and 1970s as part of the gastarbeiter (guest worker) economic program. Germany was seeking immigrant workers (largely from Turkey) and many Assyrians, seeing opportunities for freedom and success, applied for visas. Assyrians began working in restaurants or in construction, and many began operating their own shops. The first Assyrian immigrants