Margaret George Shello

Margaret George Shello, was an Assyrian fighter who joined the Kurdish guerrillas in their fight against the Iraqi governments in the 1960s.

She joined the ranks of Peshmerga at the age of 20 in 1960, and quickly asserted herself among her male comrades and was given a leading position in important battles such as the battle of Zawita Valley. Circumstances that lead to her early death are still disputed. Most Assyrian organisation believe that she was assassinated by the Kurdish leadership which feared her influence and ethnicity, while the Kurds maintain that she was murdered by a jealous lover after she rejected his marriage offer.