The Assyrian people (originally and most commonly known as Assyrians and other later variants of the name, such as; Syriacs, Syriac Christians, Suroye/Suryoye, Chaldo-Assyrians, see names of Syriac Christians) are a distinct ethnic group whose origins lie in Mesopotamia. Today that ancient territory is part of several nations; the Assyrian/Chaldean/Syriac people have been minorities under other ethnic groups' rule since late antiquity. They are indigenous to, and have traditionally lived all over Iraq, northeast Syria, northwest Iran, and the Southeastern Anatolia region of Turkey.
Many have migrated to the Caucasus, North America, Australia and Europe during the past century. Diaspora and refugee communities are based in Europe (particularly Sweden, Great Britain, Denmark, Germany and France), North America, Australia, New Zealand, Lebanon, Armenia, Georgia, southern Russia and Jordan.
Emigration was triggered by such events as the Assyrian genocide in the wake of the First World War during the breakup of the Ottoman Empire, the Simele massacre in Iraq (1933), the Islamic revolution in Iran (1979), Arab Nationalist Baathist policies in Iraq and Syria, the Al-Anfal Campaign of Saddam Hussein and to some degree Kurdish nationalist policies in northern Iraq.
The major sub-ethnic division is between an Eastern group ("Assyrian Church of the East" Assyrian "Chaldean Christians", "Syriac Orthodox", and "Ancient Church of the East") indigenous to Iraq, northwest Iran, northeast Syria and southeast Turkey, and a Western one ("Syrian Jacobites").
Most recently the Iraq War has displaced the regional Assyrian community, as its people have faced ethnic and religious persecution at the hands of both Sunni and Shia Islamic extremists and Arab and Kurdish nationalists. Of the one million or more Iraqis reported by the United Nations to have fled, nearly forty percent (40%) are Assyrian, although Assyrians comprise only three percent of the Iraqi population.