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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Elizabeth continues her story: ’Our neighbor’s son called us and said he could take us to Latakia if we wanted. He only had seats for three people, but we were five. Five of us went into the car on top of each other and left for Latakia, 50 kms away. The hospitals there were full of sick people and many injured soldiers, and if my husband needed help, he could not get it in the hospitals of Latakia. We therefore decided to go to Anjar in Lebanon, an Armenian town where the weather is good and dry. Latakia is very humid, but Anjar would be good for my husband. I think the attack is an expression of the desire to drive the Christians and the Armenians out of the Middle East. People from Kessab are builders, they work hard. This was the only place in ancient Cilicia where we could live on the land of our forefathers. We were attached to it, the land. Now we want to go back to Kessab and return to our homes. Even though our homes are destroyed there is no place like Kessab,’ says Elizabeth.