Christians fleeing from Syria
Mission East supports all refugees irrespective of their ethnic or religious affiliation, but during my last visit I mainly concentrated on circa 8,000 Christian refugees from Syria who have been driven out of their home towns. Among those refugees are Armenians from the historic town of Kessab that in March was stormed by radical rebel groups. In Syria, the Christian Armenians make up an ethnic and religious minority that for many years have lived peacefully in their towns and villages in Syria. At this time, however, they are being driven away from their homes.
In Syria, the Christians are subject to persecution and atrocities because of their faith. “We help them as well as we can, but we need outside support,” says the Armenian bishop of Lebanon.
Please spend a few minutes and read the story about the people helping the refugees from Syria, as well as eyewitness accounts from the refugees themselves.
Kim Hartzner, MD, Managing Director
Hakob Pakradounian, member of the Lebanese parliament: ’The turmoil in the area is affecting not only the Christians, but all citizens of the Middle East. The Christians , and among them the Armenians of this country, are natives of this country. They have lived here for centuries, the Armenians since the 12th century. The big number came after the genocide perpetrated by the Turks against the Armenians in 1915. And recently the Armenian refugees came here from Aleppo and other towns in Syria, including Kessab. During the past few years around 12,000 of these Armenian refugees have come from Syria to Lebanon.
But we are not alone. We have here in Lebanon more than 1.3 million refugees from Syria. The churches, the relief organisations and individual persons are trying their best to help. But our economic situation here in Lebanon is already a very bad situation, and the extra burden to the Lebanese makes it very difficult. We have a problem of housing them and of providing an education for their children. The refugees cannot pay for education and health, and we have to take care of all that. Many of the refugees came without documents, and we are doing everything we can to help them. But day by day the number of refugees increases and so do the problems. There has to be a bigger international aid effort, not only for the Armenians, but for all Syrian refugees in the area. Our brothers and sisters in humanitarian organisations and churches should think that we as Christians should stay here in the original lands of Christianity, because this region is our homeland.’
