Dargeçit
Dargeçit is a district of the Mardin Province of Turkey, currently populated by ethnic-Kurds. The government changed the name of the city to Dargeçit after the establishment of the Turkish Republic. The town was founded by Syriacs centuries ago. Prior to the Syriac/Assyrian and Armenian Genocides this city was inhabited by Kurds, Assyrians/Syriacs and Armenians. In 1900, the town had approximately 300 families with the majority of them Christians.. Before 1979, it was still inhabited by Kurds and Assyrians, but most of the Assyrian/Syriac people fled/left the city after the murder of Andreas Demir Lahdik, the Mayor of Kerburan at the time.. He was shot and murdered in the street between his house and the church, and to this day the bullet holes are still visible in the property to the north of the Church. After the exodus, the town was completely populated by a Kurdish majority.
There is the Syriac Orthodox Church of Mor Kuriyakos, which is now restored thanks to the Assyrian/Syriac diaspora. There are also two other churches, one Protestant and the other Catholic. They are both abandoned.
