SYRIAN ARMENIANS

According to Armenian Ministry of Diaspora, 18.000 Syrian Armenians have been given Armenian citizenship in 2016.

The attacks against the Armenian neighborhoods in Aleppo have recently increased and Armenia decided to send humanitarian aid to Syria. The first plane carrying the aid arrived at Latakia.

There is only one Syrian Armenian in Istanbul that I know. Though I know him for one and a half year, I couldn't have managed to learn about his story. And once I learned about it, I thought that his story should be shared.

There are Aleppo Armenians who stay there; they are resisting and struggling for their lives… Maybe they have to stay there, though they would prefer to leave; maybe they don’t have anywhere else to go or they don’t want to be refugees no matter what…

21 years old law student Claudia Brounsouzian first went to Mersin with her mother. Then, she went to Cyprus and tried to go to Europe from there. However, she couldn’t have managed to go to Southern Cyprus and because of that, she returned to Turkey; but this time, she went to İzmir. We talked to Brounsouzian about her story of migration from Aleppo to Turkey.

People continue their struggle to survive in Kessab, a town on the border of Syria with Turkey in the Hatay province area. Following the occupation of the town by Al-Nusra forces last year, the Armenians in the town had been dispersed, with most of them coming to Vakıflı Village in Hatay, and had returned after the Syrian army had retaken the town. However, the people of Kessab now face the threat of ISIS.