Sint-Katelijnekerk

In Mechelen you will find people with no less than 60 different nationalities. This diversity arose because many refugees arrived here. Initially these were mainly Christian Assyrians from Turkey. There are now even about 350 Assyrian families living in Mechelen. Almost all of them come from Hassana, a village close to the Iraqi border. Hassana was the last Christian village in the Muslim region of the Bothan Plain to be completely destroyed by the Turkish army in 1993. The Assyrians pride themselves on being descendants of the first Christians. The Christian Assyrians can hold their masses in the Catherine Church on the Katelijnekerkhof and in the St. Peter and Paul Church on the Veemarkt.