Suraya

The Assyrian people are a distinct ethnic group indigenous to the Middle East, whose origins lie in ancient Mesopotamia. Suraya was the daughter of an influential Assyrian scholar.

In the years 1914-1923, she helped many of her people escape to safety and evade being slaughtered by the armies of the Ottoman Empire during the Assyrian Genocide of World War One when hundreds of thousands of civilians were massacred.

Although she made the ultimate sacrifice and gave her life to help her people, her name is never mentioned in the history books.

Even the Assyrian executions are rarely reported but are lost in the context of the much more widespread Armenian Genocide where around 3 million people were murdered. To this day, the Turkish government deny the events took place and little is known of Suraya other than the stories handed down through the families of those she helped. She is reputed to have been a great beauty with immense courage and personal vision. She made the ultimate sacrifice for the benefit of the people she loved, but like many great heroines in history, her name has been lost in the mists of time.