ishtartv.com - syriacpress.com

 04/09/2025

RISH AYNO, North and East Syria — Rish Ayno (Ras al-Ayn / Serêkaniyê), the “Mother of Springs,” is no longer the vibrant city it once was. Its church bells have fallen silent, no longer calling generations of faithful to gather beneath their domes. The springs have run dry. The dust of the countryside covers the city, much like the sorrow that clings to the hearts of those who were forced to leave.

Once, Rish Ayno was celebrated for its rich diversity. Syriacs (Arameans–Assyrians–Chaldeans), Armenians, and Kurds lived side by side in a mosaic of languages, cultures, and religions. But that tapestry began unraveling with the 2019 invasion by Turkey and its Syrian National Army (SNA) proxies — units now formally folded into the new Syrian Army. The changes here are more than population shifts — they have uprooted communities and erased centuries of collective memory embedded in the city’s stones, balconies, minarets, and church towers.

A recent visit by a Syrian government delegation, led by Deputy Interior Minister Major General Abdul Qader Tahan, drew attention to one of the latest chapters in this transformation. Tahan met with local officials and faction leaders to discuss integrating local police forces into the Syrian General Security.

The Rish Ayno Displaced Persons Committee reported that the identities of incoming Arabs are being altered and registered in local civil records to integrate them into a new security force. The committee considers this part of a broader effort to reshape the region’s demographic composition.

Mohammed Hajo, a member of the committee, told Rudaw that about 300 people were registered to join the Syrian General Security. Of these, only 50 were original residents of Rish Ayno, while the remaining 250 were Arabs relocated from other parts of Syria.

Hajo explained that newcomers’ birthplaces were being falsified in official records to make it appear as though they were native to Rish Ayno. “Over the past two weeks, mukhtars [village chiefs] have been collecting IDs from Arabs brought to Ras al-Ayn who are not originally from the area,” he said. “Their birthplaces were altered in the records so they would be listed as local residents. This creates the illusion that the security force is made up of local youth.”

Hajo warned that these measures threaten the city’s demographic balance and called for a security force and civil council that represent all original communities. “We want to establish an internal security force drawn from all components of the region and to form a civil council where Kurds, Arabs, Syriacs, and Armenians — all the authentic components of Ras al-Ayn — participate,” he said.

Aid distribution to people displaced from Rish Ayno (Ras al-Ayn / Serekaniye) in Tel Tamer, North and East Syria, 16 October 2019. (Image: Rojava Information Center)

City with a Deep History

Ras al-Ayn, regarded as one of the oldest urban centers in Upper Mesopotamia, traces its origins back to at least 8,000 BC during the Neolithic age. Over the centuries it became known by a series of names that reflect the empires and cultures that shaped it: Sikkan under the Arameans, Rhesaina during Roman rule, and Theodosiopolis under the Byzantines, when Emperor Theodosius I expanded the settlement in the 4th century.

Around that time, the city’s renowned Syriac schools taught medicine, philosophy, and theology. Among their most famous graduates was Sergius of Reshaina, a 6th-century physician and philosopher who later served as the city’s chief physician.

Its name, Rish Ayno, meaning “head of the spring,” originates from the Akkadian Rēš ina, a reference to the prominent natural springs in the area that form the headwaters of the Khabur River. This connection to water was noted by the 11th-century Arab geographer Muhammad al-Idrisi, who described Rish Ayno, recorded by him Ras al-Ayn, as a large and thriving city sustained by nearly 300 springs. Greek, Roman, and Arab writers preserved different versions of its name over time, while in Kurdish it became Serê Kaniyê, a literal translation with the same meaning.

A portion of an Ottoman map from 1893 which includes Rish Ayno, circled in red near the top.

The city’s more recent history was shaped by the aftermath of the First World War and the redrawing of borders. Under the 1921 Treaty of Ankara between Turkey and France, Rish Ayno was split in two: the northern section became part of Turkey and is today the town of Ceylanpınar, while the southern portion remained within modern Syria. This division left a once-unified settlement straddling an international border, a legacy of its long and turbulent past.

In more recent times, Rish Ayno has been scarred by war and displacement. Between 2012 and 2015, attacks by the so-called Islamic State (ISIS) forced most Christian residents to leave. Around 60 families eventually returned, but the Turkish invasion in 2019 reduced their number again — leaving only six Christians in the city.

Today, newcomers inhabit homes they did not build and cultivate land they did not inherit. The original residents were not driven out for wrongdoing but displaced because their identities no longer aligned with political agendas. Old family names have disappeared as if they never existed. Yet history cannot be erased, and memory cannot be rewritten. The silent churches, sorrowful minarets, and shuttered homes stand as witnesses to a city that has lost its indigenous people and its diversity — a city transformed, no longer the place it once was.