Midyat is an historic center of the Assyrians in Turkey , and as late as the Assyrian genocide in 1915 they constituted the majority of the city 's population . During the early 20th century , the Syriac/Assyrian population of the city started to gradually diminish due to emigration , but the community was still very large . The Assyrians of Tur Abdin were the only significant population of Christians outside of Istanbul , until 1979 , when panic ensued over an act war and an exodus of local Christians overtook the city as a result , because a Mayor and major Syriac figure in Turabdin of the city of Kerboran , now named Dargecit , was assassinated and replaced with a Kurdish representative against the peoples will . The Syriacs up until then had control over the local government , and could therefore unify to resist threats . Panic ensued as the local Muslim population made a symbolic declaration of war against the Syriac people and soon after the takeover , local Mhallami and Kurdish inhabitants started immigrating into the traditionally Syriac areas , causing a demographic shift which - along with the start of the Turkey-PKK conflict a few years later in 1984 - sounded a death toll to the community not only here , but in all of Tur Abdin . From a 1975 population of 50,000 comprising 10 % of Mardin Province 's demographic structure : barely 2,000 were left by the end of the conflict in 1999 . Now only around 3-5,000 live in Tur Abdin , with the other 15-17,000 living in Istanbul and other still functioning Syriac Diocese like Adiyaman , Harput , and Diyarbakir
Assyrian genocide
Assyrian genocide
Midyat