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'''Yüksekova''' ({{lang-ku|Gewer}}; [[Syriac language|Syriac]]: ''Gawar''), is a Kurdish city and formerly known as '''Gever''' (not Gawar or Gavur), is a district of [[Hakkari Province]] of [[Turkey]], situated on the border with [[Iran]]. Its location on the trade route between north western [[Iran]] and eastern Turkey made it an important juncture for travelers and the location of several ethnic groups that were active in regional trade. It is an historically [[Assyrian Chaldean people|AssyrianChaldean]] region.

In the early 20th century, the villages in Gawar predominantly consisted of [[Assyrian Chaldean people|AssyriansChaldeans]] with a few numbers of [[Jews]] among them. ''Gawar'' is from the [[Turkish language|Turkish]] "Gavur" meaning "[[infidel]]," referring to what were the primarily Christian inhabitants of the region, the AssyriansChaldeans. In the 1st century AD, its name was ''Beth-Bagash'' (so was the [[Nochiya Region|Nochiya]] district). In the 1920s its name was changed to ''Yuksekova''.<ref>G. Maspero : :"Hitory Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, and Babylonia, and Assyria",V8, special study by Project Gutenberg</ref>

In the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century, Gawar had around 30 villages (the number is variable because [[Turkish people|Turks]] used to destroy the villages and Assyrians Chaldeans re-built them). Prior to the [[Assyrian Chaldeans Genocide]] during World War I, the population of Gawar was 15,000.<ref>Assyrians Chaldeans Of The Van District During The Rule Of Ottoman Turks, M.Y.A . Lilian, 1914</ref> Inhabitants lived off [[agriculture]] that mainly consisted of [[wheat]] and [[barley]], [[cotton]], [[tea]]. Gawar had around 1497 families in the 1880s.

Up until [[World War I]], Gawar was the seat of a bishop of the [[Church of the East]]. The district of Gawar served as the main travel stop for Assyrians Chaldeans traveling between the Hakkari tribal areas and the [[Urmia]] plains. At various times in the 19th century the residents of many Assyrian Chaldeans villagers from the district were forced to convert to [[Islam]] or were killed.<ref>Perkins, P: 316.</ref>

Only about a hundred families were in Gawar after the [[Massacres of Badr Khan|Kurdish massacre]] of [[Bedr Khan Beg]]. [[Justin Perkins]] (1805-1869) described the situation of Gawar and other Assyrian Chaldeans districts as follows: “The koords treat the Nestorians, who are subjects to their spoliation, as they do their bees, - leave them quiet till the hive is worth taking up and then rob it”. The Gawar, Albeq and Salamas villages suffered more than other districts because its inhabitants were subjects of the [[Ottoman Turks|Ottoman]]-Islamic occupation, unlike their brethren of the highlands (the independent tribes of [[Tyari]], [[Jilu]], Baz, Diz, Tkhuma).<ref>E.L.Cutts : “Christians under the crescent in Asia”, London, P: 355</ref>

The heredity of the bishop family stopped during WW1, when all the family members were beheaded by the Kurds in Gegoran village in 1914. In October 1914, Gawar, Albaq and Salamas were the first districts targeted under the motto of "[[Jihad]]". Thousands were slaughtered and hundreds of villages were completely burned and destroyed.<ref>Rev. Justin Perkins : “A residence of eight years in Persia among the Nestorian Christians”, New York, 1843 – P: 304.</ref> Today the descendants of the Gawar inhabitants are distributed around the world just like other AssyriansChaldeans, and the district is fully inhabited by Kurds.

== Notable Gawar Assyrians Chaldeans ==* [[Mar Meelis ZaiaBishop Faraj Raho]] - [[Assyrian Chaldean Church of the East]] [[bishop]], [[diocese]] of [[AustraliaMosul]] and [[New ZealandIraq]].

* [[Assyrian Chaldean Tribes]]* [[List of Assyrian Chaldean settlements]]* [[Tyari]], an Assyrian Chaldean tribe also in Hakkari

[[Category:Assyrian Chaldean settlements]]