portico was added to the church of Mor Dimet in 1924. In the early 1990s, there were skirmishes between paramilitaries, the Turkish military, and Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) militants near the village as part of the Kurdish–Turkish conflict. Paramilitaries and their relatives extorted 20 million Turkish lira from the villagers on 18 February 1992 on threat of killing the mukhtar Gevriye Akyol (village headman). The Assyrian villagers were forced to flee to Midyat in April 1993 upon receiving death threats from paramilitaries, and they remained there in the hope the situation would improve, but again received death threats on returning to Zaz in the summer. The four Kurdish families were allowed to remain, whereas the Assyrians emigrated to Europe, particularly Germany and Sweden. The church of Mor Dimet was restored in the late 1990s by Assyrians in the diaspora, and a monk and nun took up residence in the church in 2001. It was reported that Kurds from neighbouring villages had seized the Assyrians' houses and land, damaged the church by pouring sewage into it, and verbally and physically abused the monk and nun. Notable people Masʿūd II of Ṭur ʿAbdin (1431-1512), Syriac Orthodox Patriarch of Tur Abdin Hatune Doğan, Nun of the Syriac Orthodox Church References Bibliography Villages in Midyat District Assyrian communities in Turkey Tur Abdin Places of the Assyrian genocide Populated places in ancient Upper Mesopotamia Kurdish settlements in Mardin Province