Zaxo

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Zakho (Arabic: زاخو; Kurdish: Zaxo,زاخو, or Zaco Assyrian ܙܟܘ ) is a district and a town in Iraqi Kurdistan located a few kilometers from the Iraqi-Turkish border. Zakho has served as a checkpoint for many decades. It has become a major market place with its goods and merchandise serving not only the Kurdish controlled area, but most of north and middle Iraq. Due to its strategic location and the abundance of job opportunities, Zakho has attracted many workers and job seekers from different parts of Iraq and even from Syria and Turkey. Zakho has a diocese of Chaldea. It corresponds to the ancient Diocese of Maalta, formerly a suffragan of Adiabene or Arbela. Some Nestorian bishops are mentioned from the fifth to the seventh century (Chabot, "Synodicon orientale", 676). It was reunited with the dioceses of Akra and Amadia until the middle of the nineteenth century, when the province was divided into three dioceses: Amadia, Zakho, and Akra-Zehbar. The diocese comprises 3500 Catholics, ten resident priests, five religious of the Congregation of St. Hormisdas, fifteen parishes or stations, twenty churches and chapels, and one primary school. Zakho dates from 1859. Today Zakho is a province of the province of Dohuk. The city has 600,000 inhabitants. It may have originally begun on a small island in the Habur River Little Khabur which currently flows through the city. The Habor River flows west of Zakho to form the border between Iraq and Turkey and also the border between Iraq and Syria. The Tigris (Dicle) flows into the Habor after serving as the border between Syria and Turkey. The Habor River is one of the locales to which the Israelites were exiled. (1 Chronicles, 5:26, 2 Kings 17:6, 2 Kings 18:11)