Why Syrian Armenians Are Avoiding Turkey

Sibil Hurtas

In large part because of the Syrian civil war that began in 2011, today there are 3,585,738 Syrians in Turkey, according to official numbers.

As a result of the war, Kurds and Turkmens sought refuge in neighboring countries such as Jordan, Lebanon and Turkey. All Syrian ethnic groups flowed into Turkey save for Syrian Armenians. This attracted the attention of journalist Serdar Korucu, who has been doing research into refugee communities along the border. Korucu told Al-Monitor last week that when he saw there were practically no Armenians among the refugees, he told himself, “This can’t just be because of the low ratio of Armenians to the overall Syrian population. There has to be another reason.”

'Syrian refugees improve Armenia's social fabric'

Tamila Varshalomidze

 

The presence of Syrian refugees in Armenia's mono-ethnic society has been celebrated in the capital Yerevan through the personal initiative of an art curator and three photographers who have been documenting the migration since the eruption of the war in Syria in 2011.

A documentary photo exhibition that opened on Friday [December 15, 2017] was called Home to Home, to highlight the fact that the 20,000 new arrivals were descendants of Armenians who fled from Turkey to Syria during another war more than 100 years ago.

Archbishop Shahan Sarkissian: "We are not against Muslims"

Mélinée Le Priol
Translated by Vartan Matiossian 
 

In a visit to France, the prelate of the Armenian Apostolic Church of Aleppo offers a message of reconciliation for a "renewed" Syria.

- What represents the Armenian community in Syria, particularly in Aleppo?
His Eminence Shahan Sarkissian: The presence of Armenians in Syria goes back to the thirteenth century. During the genocide perpetrated by the Turks in 1915, Syria was their final destination, and many survivors remained there afterwards. Before the explosion of the Syrian crisis in 2011, there were 80,000 Armenians in Syria, of which 45,000 in Aleppo. This town is considered the capital of Syrian Armenians. Today, 30,000 Armenians are said to remain in Syria, with half of them in Aleppo. 

Aleppo's Armenian Church of Forty Martyrs: Serious Damage

Reports from news agencies and the Armenian press surfaced in the morning of April 29, claiming that the Armenian church of Forty Martyrs, dating back to the fifteenth century and located in the old quarter of Jdeydeh, Aleppo, had been destroyed in the afternoon of April 26, 2015 by a terrorist attack. However, reports coming from Aleppo on April 29 indicated that the structure of the church was stable, but in a worrisome state due to continuous shelling over the past few days in the neighborhood. The door of the church has been damaged and the courtyard of the "Aghbalian" hall of the Armenian Prelacy has collapsed. The actual building that was destroyed was the Maronite print shop, located behind the church complex.

SARF Issues Announcement About Armenian Refugee Immigration to the United States

The Syrian Armenian Relief Fund issued a statement, published on January 23, 2015 in "Asbarez," regarding Syrian-Armenian refugees interested in immigrating to the US.The text in particular says:

"In recent weeks, public announcements have been made throughout the Armenian community that the United Nations High Commissioner of Refugees along with the United States government have initiated a Syrian resettlement program to assist individuals and families who have become displaced as a result of the continuing unrest in the country.

"We Don’t Run": An Interview with Archbishop Shahan Sarkisian, Prelate of Aleppo

Nanore Barsoumian

 

In late October, Archbishop Shahan Sarkisian, the prelate of Aleppo, granted an interview to the Armenian Weekly. The Archbishop was in Boston to meet with community organizations and to personally thank the Armenian Relief Society (ARS) for its efforts in providing assistance to the Syrian-Armenian community. During the hour-long interview—conducted in Armenian—Archbishop Sarkisian gave an overview of the Syrian crisis, and spoke about the challenges facing the community today. He was direct in criticizing the worldwide Armenian community for failing to respond to the crisis in a united and comprehensive manner. He said that there is a difference between being concerned and interested—and argued that what he was witnessing was interest and not concern. To be concerned, he added, means to take on responsibility, and that has been missing in the relief efforts.

Archbishop Sarkisian emphasized the importance of keeping Armenian schools in Syria open for students—a cause he considers vital to the survival of the community. “Armenian schools are the light of our eyes,” he said, and they need the support of the diaspora. He also spoke about communal organization, relations with neighboring communities, and the dangers before them.

An Aleppo Auto King, Now Selling Street Food in Yerevan

Karen Leigh

Yerevan, Armenia - He still has the same cell phone, an early smartphone purchased in Aleppo before Syria’s three-year-long conflict turned the life of this formerly well-off businessman upside down. On it are photos of a life now long gone – a happy extended family of Syrian-Armenians posing in its well-appointed home, unaware of what was to come.

In Aleppo, Sako, aged 60, owned an auto-repair business that employed 15 workers. He made a substantial amount of money, he says – enough to buy four apartments in Aleppo and two cars, and eat out regularly at the city’s pricier spots. Then the war hit his business, forcing him to flee with his wife to Yerevan, the Armenian capital, where years earlier he had sent one of his sons to study to be a pharmacist.

The "Liberation" of Aleppo: Nor Kyugh Declared Disaster Zone

The continued rocket fire by rebel forces in the direction of the mostly-Armenian-populated Nor Kyugh neighborhood of Aleppo has forced officials to declare the area a disaster zone, and threatens the survival of the city’s Armenian community.

The Aleppo News Agency reported that incessant rocket fire from rebel forces, a significant number of which are reportedly Turks or radical Islamists, continued in Nor Kyugh, endangering civilians and causing massive destruction.

Three Kessab Armenians Freed after Being Held in a Turkish Prison

At a press briefing on March 31, Armenia’s Social Democrat Hunchakian Party Executive Committee deputy chairman Vasken Mesrobian stated that out of 22 Kessab Armenians, who had not been evacuated and subsequently were arrested, transported and detained in a Turkish prison, the three eldest have already been released and will be transported to Latakia.

Leak and You Tube Ban in Turkey; U.S. State Department "Deeply Troubled"

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has filed a complaint against Today's Zaman editor-in-chief Bülent Keneş, deputy editor-in-chief Mehmet Kamış, columnist Emre Uslu, journalist Önder Aytaç, and Former İstanbul Police Department Intelligence Bureau Chief Ali Fuat Yılmazer on Saturday, March 29, 2014, a day before local elections in Turkey.

Erdoğan's lawyers said in a petition they submitted to Ankara Public Prosecutor's Office that they seek travel ban for Uslu, Aytaç, and Yılmazer and claimed that Keneş and Kamış humiliated Erdoğan in their tweets.

Turkish Activists Condemn Ongoing Offenses in Kessab

The attacks against the Armenian-populated Syrian town of Kessab and Turkey’s support to the terrorists carrying out the attacks has angered some Turkish intellectuals. As Turkey’s DemokratHaber.net reports, prominent Turkish publisher and author Ragip Zarakolu and publicist Sait Cetinoglu have voiced their concerns.

Kessab: Deep Roots amid Fallen Leaves



Lalai Manjikian



It is that autumn season again in Montreal when fallen leaves brighten the city. Nothing burdens me right now, as I feel the earth’s cold moisture spread across my knees, staining my newly washed jeans. Instead, I form abstract clusters of yellow, red, and brown as I collect the leaves on the ground. This act soon becomes the free rearrangement of dampened earth colors on a grass canvas against the brisk November wind.

Syrian Armenians in Armenia: Challenges, Support, and Relief

Harout Ekmanian

 

The Syrian crisis began in the spring of 2011, but it wasn’t until violence hit Aleppo in late July 2012 that the first wave of Syrian Armenians began trickling into Armenia. Within just a couple of months, 3,000 refugees were living in the country. While their numbers have continued to increase—just past 11,000, according to a recent report by the Armenian Ministry of Diaspora—a significant portion have left Armenia for Europe, the U.S., or other Western countries.

The Housing Conundrum: Syrian Armenians in Armenia

Sarkis Balkhian

 



“My father passed away a few years before the beginning of the conflict. My mother works as a cook for 12 hours a day, while my 14-year-old brother attends school,” says Daron, 16, a Syrian-Armenian waiter in Yerevan. “I can’t go to school because I have to support my family.”

The 34 months of the Syrian crisis has resulted in 120,000 deaths, 7 million internally displaced persons (IDP), and 2.3 million refugees.¹ Although the situation of the refugees across the Middle East, or even in certain European states like Bulgaria,² is drastically worse than the circumstance of the Syrian Armenians in Armenia, nonetheless those who have resettled in Armenia are also facing numerous economic, social, and legal challenges.

Aleppo on the Verge of Famine

Translated by Vartan Matiossian

 

In its edition of July 9, the newspaper "Marmara" of Istanbul has published the following anonymous report from a reliable source of Aleppo. According to it, the situation is extremely serious and the inhabitants of Aleppo have reached the verge of famine and are struggling between death and life.

Armenians Fleeing Anew as Syria Erupts in Battle

Alia Malek

 



At the newly opened Cilician School in this former Soviet republic, the textbooks are in Arabic, photocopied from a single set flown out of war-torn Syria. The curriculum is Syrian, the flag on the principal’s desk is Syrian, and the teachers and students are all Syrians.

They are also ethnic Armenians, driven by Syria’s civil war to a notional motherland most barely know.