The Crisis of the Armenian Community of Syria and the Repatriation (2012-2018)
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.46991/hc.2025.si1.133Keywords:
Syria, Armenian community, war, crisis, Ministry of Diaspora of the RA, preserving Armenianness, repatriationAbstract
As a consecuance of the war in Syria, started in March, 2011, and still continuing in different parts of the country, also Armenian-populated villages and towns, including Aleppo, Damascus, Kessab, were completely destroyed and set on fire. The Armenian churches, schools, national buildings, houses were looted, desecrated and set on fire. As a result of the emigration that started, as well as the victims, the Armenian community has become significantly thinner. About 10.000 of 80.000 Armenians remain.
Thousands of Armenian-Syrians have taken shelter among other countries (Lebanon, Jordan, the United Arab Emirates, the USA, Canada, Sweden, etc.) also in the Motherland, in the Republics of Armenia. From the beginning of the war to 2018, 22 thousand Syrian Armenians arrived in Armenia.
The RA government, particularly the Ministry of Diaspora (2008-2018), supported those who wanted to repatriate in every possible way and contributed to the socio-economic and educational integration of immigrants in the Motherland.
Under the conditions of a precarious and unpromising future and the gradually threatening dangers in Syria, as well as in the Near and Middle East and the Western countries, in addition to the dreadful geopolitical developments imperiling humanity and civilization, and a 100 years following the Armenian Genocide, it is advisable to ideologically and psychologically prepare those living in foreign lands and facing the danger of the maintenance of their physical existence and assimilation to make a transition from a century-old passive and inefficient Armenian-preserving policy into a practical land-preserving policy, into Repatriation to the Native Country.
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