(AINA) -- Iskandar Dayan, an Assyrian farmer living in south-east Turkey near the Syrian border, was attacked and severly beaten by twelve Kurds on November 16. Mr. Dayan was driving his tractor alone when approached by the twelve Kurds, whom he recognized as being from a neighboring Kurdish village. The Kurds beat him, breaking his jaw, and warned him to never cultivate his land.

Mr. Dayan was brought to a hospital in Diyarbakir. The Kurds were arrested by the police, but were set free after they were interrogated.

The attack is part of a wider pattern in which Kurds intimidate, threaten and attack Assyrians in order to take over their lands. Court cases relating to this problem abound in south-east Turkey, where Kurds, empowered by their sheer numbers and the support of PKK Kurdish militia, carry out an ethnic cleansing campaign against Assyrians.

The area in south-eastern Turkey, known in Assyrian as Turabdin, was inhabited almost entirely by Assyrians one hundred years ago. The genocide on Assyrians in 1915, the war with the PKK and Kurdish encroachment has sharply reduced the Assyrian population to a few thousand.