Armenians again driven away

Kessab is a historic Christian town populated by Armenians and located in north-western Syria very close to the border with Turkey. Kessab has been an Armenian town for centuries, and the town is important in the cultural history of the Armenian people and in their understanding of themselves.
Until 1922 the town was part of the Turkish Ottoman Empire. In1915, when close to one and a half million Armenians were killed in the Ottoman Empire, 5,000 Armenians in Kessab were deported and killed.
On 21st of March this year Kessab was occupied by radical rebel groups as part of the civil war in Syria, and almost the entire Armenian population were driven away. The majority of the citizens of Kessab have found refuge in surrounding towns like Latakia in Syria and in neighboring Lebanon.
Mission East supports all refugees irrespective of their ethnic and religious affiliation, but during my recent visit to Lebanon I especially concentrated on 8,000 Christian Armenian refugees who had been driven away from their towns in Syria.
These Christian Armenians have lost everything they own and have built up during their entire lives.

Mission East is doing what we can to help as many of these refugees as possible, focusing on their immediate needs – food, clothing and medicine.
And should the miracle occur that one day they could return to their homes in Syria, we also want to help them there.
Please spend a few minutes and read the story about the Christian Armenians who have fled their century-old home in Kessab, Syria.

Kim Hartzner, MD, Managing Director

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’The 21st of March was a day off and everybody was sleeping. It was between 5 and 6 o’clock when I woke up. I thought it was an earthquake, with stones falling down from the mountain. I went out and realized it was the shootings. As if they are attacking with thousands of weapons. They were attacking Syria from Turkey. People were panicking in Kessab and we could hear the explosions in various places. Our building was shaking. Our apartment is on the top floor. I woke up my family members and tried to go downstairs. It was very hard to move my husband. It took us almost 15 minutes to bring my husband down from the top floor. My son and I slowly moved him. We went to the street and did not know what to do or where to go. We have no car. We called friends but realized that they had no place in their cars. At last we got a ride to a village near Kessab. We waited there, but things got worse and the explosions were getting worse. We left Kessab. We could not take anything with us. All our memories, our whole past was left behind. My husband had more than 1000 books, including the books he had written himself. He could not take anything with him. Everything was left behind.’
Here Elizabeth’s husband, Vrej.