FEBRUARY 2022

Located in the Telkepe District, a five-minute drive from Tilkepe village, the village of Batnaya
was ravaged by ISIS, and is now being reconstructed by USAID. 1,200 families had left
Batnaya during the occupation of ISIS, and the village was seized by Peshmerga during the
Battle of Mosul. Only 300 families had returned as of February 2020. This photo shows a
priest inside a church that has been stripped of all valuables, including building materials.
This is a picture of a woman who lives in the village
of Sarsing, a sub-district in the Dohuk Governorate
in Kurdistan Region, located in the Sapna Valley in
the Amadiya District. By the early 1960s, Sarsing had
become a key tourist attraction and a hotel, cinema,
and restaurants were established. The village is known
for summertime tourism; those looking to escape the
Baghdad heat. This woman has traveled the world but
insists on staying in her hometown.
Akre is a city in the northern part of Iraq. The Akre Kala (the Castle) is on top of Akre mount. We
believe that Wilson and his crew are the first to photograph this site professionally. There are
ruins that are very visible but unknown. They appear to be a rectangular shape water reservoir,
and many wells that have small openings at the surface, but get wider below the surface,
going down 10 to 12 feet. There are clear cuts in the mountain resembling a walkway, building
structures and short square stumps. The style of these cuts resembles the Sennacherib Period
of 700 BC. The name Akre (Aqrah or Akra) is an old Aramaic word meaning the base or the root,
or it could also be from Sumerian Akera meaning A: Water Ki: place Ra: water rolling or water
branching; so, a place where water rolls from.
This photo is of a stair walkway to the mountain that takes you past some houses, then leads
you the top. The mountain oversees the city of Akre. There are some Christians remains in the
city; two old churches on the side of the mountain.
FEBRUARY 2022 CHALDEAN NEWS 21