Cizre

Cizre (Turkish: [ˈdʒizɾe]) is a city in the Cizre District of Şırnak Province in Turkey. It is located on the river Tigris by the Syria–Turkey border and close to the Iraq–Turkey border. Cizre is in the historical region of Upper Mesopotamia and the cultural region of Turkish Kurdistan. The city had a population of 130,916 in 2021. It is predominantly inhabited by Kurds. Cizre was founded as Jazirat Ibn ʿUmar in the 9th century by Al-Hasan ibn Umar, Emir of Mosul, on a manmade island in the Tigris. The city benefited from its situation as a river crossing and port in addition to its position at the end of an old Roman road which connected it to the Mediterranean Sea, and thus became an important commercial and strategic centre in Upper Mesopotamia. By the 12th century, it had adopted an intellectual and religious role, and sizeable Christian and Jewish communities are attested. Cizre suffered in the 15th century from multiple sackings and ultimately came under the control of the Ottoman Empire after 1515. Under Ottoman control, Cizre stagnated and was left as a small district centre dominated by ruins by the end of the 19th century. The city's decline continued, exacerbated by the state-orchestrated destruction of its Christian population in the Armenian genocide and Sayfo in 1915, and exodus of its Jewish population to Israel in 1951. It began to recover in the second half of the 20th century through urban redevelopment, and its population saw a massive increase as a place of refuge from 1984 onwards as many fled the Kurdish–Turkish conflict. At the close of the 20th century and beginning of the 21st century, Cizre has emerged as a battleground between Kurdish militants and the Turkish state, which inflicted significant devastation on the city to retain control.