In antiquity the Sumerians built a settlement in the area. The city was a centre of silk-making. They were succeeded by a number of other Mesopotamian civilisations. The Roman Emperor Constantine I brought the town under the control of the city of Edessa. One of the most famous residents of the district is its 6th-century Syriacbishop and poet-theologian Jacob of Serugh. The Roman Catholic Church hold the bishopric as a titular see of that church, though they had little presence in the area, while the Syriac church holds a separate Bishopric in the town. Tell-Batnan was visited by emperor Julian on his march from Antioch to the Euphrates in 363. The town was surrendered to the RashidunArabs in 639. It was later controlled by Crusaders, and Muslims again. The city was then destroyed in the Mongol invasions, and in 1517 the area was brought into the Ottoman Empire by Selim I. Suruç was occupied in 1918 by British and in 1919 by French troops, but was freed by a local resistance struggle. Today, Suruç is inhabited mostly by ethnic Kurds.
21st century
On 19 October 2014, journalist Serena Shim was killed in Suruç. On 20 July 2015, at approximately 12:50 GMT, the 2015 Suruç bombing occurred, killing 32 people and injuring others outside the Amara Cultural Center. Ahead of the June 24th anticipated 2018 Turkish elections, four people were killed in Suruç while an AKP candidate toured the city's market. According to pro-Kurdish sources, AKP Ibrahim Halil Yıldız went to local shopkeeper Hacı Esvet Şenyaşar where a brawl started.
Celal Şenyaşar, son of Haci Esvet Şenyaşar, during the initial brawl at the shop, was shot and killed there.
Mehmet Şenyaşar, son of Haci Esvet Şenyaşar, visiting the hospital following the brawl, was attacked and hit on the head repeatedly with an oxygen tank and killed.
Haci Esvet Şenyaşar, the shop keeper, was lynched at the Suruç hospital.
Mehmet Ali Yıldız, brother of MP Yıldız, died at the Mehmet Akif Inan Hospital in Urfa.
One of his bodyguards of Mehmet Ali Yıldız, died at the Mehmet Akif Inan Hospital in Urfa.
The Suruç hospital camera were damaged. This events happened days after Erdogan was filmed encouraging identification and intimidation of opposition voters on sites.
Politics
In the local elections on 31 March 2019 Hatice Çevik was elected as Mayor. Kenan Aktaş was appointed Kaymakam, as representative of the state. On the 15 November 2019 Çevik was detained, and the next day she was dismissed and Kenan Aktaş appointed as a trustee.
Ecclesiastical history of Batnae
Batnae was important enough in the Roman province of Osroene to become a suffragan bishopric of its capital Edessa's Metropolitan, yet was to fade. The most famous Bishop of the city was Jacob of Serugh – The great Syriac Christian hymnographer born around 451 at Kurtam on the Euphrates and educated at Edessa becoming a priest at Hawra in the Serugh district, as a wandering pastor of several villages. At the age of 67 he was made bishop of Batnan, where he died around 521. Jacob avoided the theological controversies of his age, and is claimed with equal eagerness by Chalcedonian and non-Chalcedonian Christians as one of their own. He wrote several Hymns, 760 homilies and the Syriac translation of Evagrius. Another Bishop was Abraham of Batnae a contemporary of Basil of Caesarea. fl373 The bishopric would be nominally restored in two different titular bishoprics, for different Catholic rite-specific particular churches.
Syriac titular see
Established in the early 20th century, under repeatedly changed names: 'Bathna, Bathnan. Suppressed in 1933, restored under its present name in 1965. It has had the following incumbents, all of the lowest rank :
