(AINA) -- Assyrian leaders and advocates are sounding the alarm on escalating human rights violations in Iraq and Syria, where forced displacement, systemic discrimination, and cultural erasure continue unabated. As political disenfranchisement and targeted violence drive Assyrians from their ancestral lands, the urgent need for intervention grows stronger.

Full report: Endangered: The Struggles of the Indigenous Assyrians in their Homelands

A new report exposes the policies eroding Assyrian rights, including land seizures, religious persecution, and the suppression of political representation. This comes on the heels of a pivotal gathering of an Assyrian coalition in Washington, DC, where the Athra Alliance and advocates presented their case at the International Religious Freedom (IRF) Summit. They engaged with distinguished officials and leading policy think tanks to discuss their concrete action plan for addressing the worsening crisis.

Assyrians in Iraq have faced deliberate political marginalization. Kurdish and Iranian-backed proxies continue to manipulate Assyrian political seats, effectively silencing the community and obstructing self-determination. Alongside this, land confiscation and illegal appropriations systematically strip Assyrians of their homes, continuing to force many into permanent exile.

Security threats remain dire. Political assassinations of Assyrian leaders in Kurdish-controlled regions remain unsolved, with perpetrators enjoying impunity. Economic suppression further fuels this crisis. Assyrians endure discriminatory policies and restricted access to resources, leaving them economically incapacitated. In education, the Kurdish-led administration in Iraq imposes a mandatory curriculum that expropriates Assyrian history and glorifies figures responsible for the assassination of Patriarch Shimmun XXI and the massacres of their ancestors.

The report also exposes extremist threats, including Hawpa, a Kurdish neo-Nazi organization, which is registered with the Kurdish Regional Government (KRG). Its charter "explicitly calls for the genocide of Assyrians, outlining plans for extermination before later being removed from their website in an effort to obscure its extremist agenda."

In Syria, Assyrian schools have been forcibly shut down, further erasing Assyrian cultural and linguistic heritage. Assyrians are trapped between two oppressive education systems: the central Syrian curriculum, which includes Sharia law and is banned by the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (AANES), and the Kurdish-imposed AANES curriculum, which promotes historical revisionism, glorifies terrorism, lacks accreditation, and advances Kurdish nationalist ideology.

Fear of retaliation forces individuals who report these violations into anonymity, highlighting the repression and violent retaliation against Assyrians in the region. Assyrians who speak out against the human rights abuses committed by the Kurdish administration face targeted violence, harassment, disappearance and death.

Western-backed Syrian Democratic Forces have repeatedly desecrated Assyrian churches and cemeteries by digging trenches and establishing military positions within these sacred sites, turning them into battlegrounds and launch points for attacks, placing Assyrian civilians in the crossfire of a conflict they did not choose. The report documents violations that meet the established criteria for ethnic cleansing, demonstrating a systematic campaign to erase Assyrians from their indigenous homeland.

As Assyrians face ongoing challenges in both Iraq and Syria, securing self-administration remains essential for their survival. In Iraq, one of the last remaining hopes lies in the establishment of the Nineveh Governorate as an autonomous region, governed by Assyrians and protected by a locally-embedded security force. Similarly, in Northeast Syria, self-administration remains crucial for Assyrians to sustain their presence in their ancestral lands and ensure their continued survival.

The report concludes with a decisive call to action, urging policymakers and human rights organizations to enforce protections against land seizures, support Assyrian self-governance, and hold accountable those responsible for political repression and violence. Without immediate intervention, the indigenous Assyrians of Iraq and Syria risk being erased from their homelands.