Armenia has hosted over 16,000 Syrian refugees, Sargsyan says
YEREVAN, September 30. /ARKA/. To date, Armenia has hosted more than 16,000 refugees from Syria, Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan said at the 70th session of the UN General Assembly.
‘Today we witness unspeakable cruelty taking place in the Middle East. The religious intolerance resulted in the irreversible aftermath. We have been most directly affected by the atrocities unfolding there, since they result in the destruction of the Armenian spiritual and cultural heritage artefacts, murder and expulsion of the numerous Armenians residing in Iraq and Syria. The Armenian community of Syria, whose history is centuries-long, shares and experiences all hardships that the Syrian people are undergoing in these difficult times. We are trying to aid the refuges to the best of our abilities: until this day, Armenia received more than 16 thousand refugees from Syria. By this sheer figure, Armenia is one of the first among recipient European countries.’
According to Sargsyan, Armenians know well the fate of the refuges, of the exiled and expelled. ‘The Armenian Genocide should have claimed many more lives, and the survivors should have gone through much more hardship unless a number of nations, our friends had given us their shoulder in those difficult times. Today it is Germany, Sweden, and some other countries that deserve their due praise for humanism they displayed. They provided hundreds of thousands of refugees with safe haven, and thus reiterated that the assistance was necessary both from the legal and humanist perspectives.’
Since March 2011 the Syrian armed conflict has claimed, according to the UN, hundreds of thousands of lives. Government troops are fighting against various armed groups.
Before the conflict Syria had an 80,000 strong Armenian community the bulk being in the second largest city Aleppo. About 7,000 Armenian lived in the capital Damascus. Now, according to various estimates, there remain about 7,000 Armenians in Syria. ---0-----
‘Today we witness unspeakable cruelty taking place in the Middle East. The religious intolerance resulted in the irreversible aftermath. We have been most directly affected by the atrocities unfolding there, since they result in the destruction of the Armenian spiritual and cultural heritage artefacts, murder and expulsion of the numerous Armenians residing in Iraq and Syria. The Armenian community of Syria, whose history is centuries-long, shares and experiences all hardships that the Syrian people are undergoing in these difficult times. We are trying to aid the refuges to the best of our abilities: until this day, Armenia received more than 16 thousand refugees from Syria. By this sheer figure, Armenia is one of the first among recipient European countries.’
According to Sargsyan, Armenians know well the fate of the refuges, of the exiled and expelled. ‘The Armenian Genocide should have claimed many more lives, and the survivors should have gone through much more hardship unless a number of nations, our friends had given us their shoulder in those difficult times. Today it is Germany, Sweden, and some other countries that deserve their due praise for humanism they displayed. They provided hundreds of thousands of refugees with safe haven, and thus reiterated that the assistance was necessary both from the legal and humanist perspectives.’
Since March 2011 the Syrian armed conflict has claimed, according to the UN, hundreds of thousands of lives. Government troops are fighting against various armed groups.
Before the conflict Syria had an 80,000 strong Armenian community the bulk being in the second largest city Aleppo. About 7,000 Armenian lived in the capital Damascus. Now, according to various estimates, there remain about 7,000 Armenians in Syria. ---0-----