The following interview with Zepure Reisian, an Aleppo-based member of the Armenian Relief Society (ARS) Central Executive, was conducted at the Armenian Weekly offices in late August. It provides a glimpse into the challenges facing the Armenian community in Syria, and the efforts to alleviate those difficulties.
The Armenian Weekly: How would you describe the situation in the Armenian-populated neighborhoods of Aleppo today? How safe are they?
Zepure Reisian: Let me first say a few words about the demographic makeup of the Armenian-populated neighborhoods in Aleppo. As you know, millions have been displaced as a result of the war, and many in Aleppo have taken refuge in relatively safer areas of the city; as a result, the neighborhoods in question have witnessed a demographic change as well.
The Nor Kyugh region has the largest concentration of Armenians. In 2012, the area was the scene of clashes. That year, many families left their homes and took refuge in the houses of relatives or in houses provided by the Aleppo Armenian Emergency Relief Committee. Fortunately, no Armenian family has remained without a home—they all have found a shelter. However, despite being in the same city, they haven’t been able to return to their homes, which are under the control of rebels.
In terms of security, there is no safe moment; there are only relatively calmer periods. The situation can flare up at any moment. In the Nor Kyugh region especially—and there are Armenians still living there—clashes resume often, and shells fall on buildings that still house some residents. In such cases, Armenian volunteers rush to the area to help extinguish fires and assist the population.
During the severe shelling on Nor Kyugh, when it was necessary to transport the area’s population in an organized manner to safer areas and underground shelters, Armenian volunteers took on that responsibility. When Aleppo was in need of water or during bread shortages, again volunteers provided water and distributed bread to the needy. The sacrifices of these heroic volunteers are countless and praiseworthy.
A.W.: The school year is around the corner. Tell us about the situation of the schools.
Z.R.: Several schools that were caught in the crossfire or were in unsafe areas have stopped operating over the past several years, and the students have moved to other schools. For example, students of schools affiliated with the Armenian Prelacy were moved to the Gulbenkian School, and are using the school’s building during the morning and afternoon shifts. Naturally, under these circumstances, certain classes were removed from the curriculum—for example, physical education and arts and crafts sessions.
A.W.: What are the major challenges facing the community today?
Z.R.: Initially, the main concern was over security and safety. Soon thereafter, though, economic hardship began to overshadow the security challenges. Many people lost access to their stores and businesses, and while some found alternatives in safer areas of the city, many others remain jobless and without an income. The high rate of inflation has only made things worse. Under these circumstances, there is a good number of families that cannot survive without humanitarian assistance.
The war has taken a toll on everyone. Working in schools, we notice how children have been affected by the harsh conditions. Often, the cues are very subtle—the sparkle in their eyes is no longer there. When we look at old photographs of the schoolchildren, the differences become all the more obvious. We do our best to keep their morale high, but outside of those few hours at school, they are, unavoidably, faced with the harsh realities of war.
For example, recently, during the hottest days of the summer, the water shortages took a heavy toll on everyone. People mainly tried to resolve this problem by trying to obtain water from the wells. Every morning, families would first tackle the water problem before going about their lives.
Electricity shortages have become the norm for several years now. Initially, families spent many nights—even New Year’s Eve and holidays—under candlelight. Over time, solutions—although costly—were put in place. Electricity generators replaced the candles in many households. Today, these solutions provide 8-10 hours of electricity every day, and neighborhoods are no longer covered by a blanket of darkness. Still, there are many families that cannot afford to pay the weekly electricity fees, and spend their evenings under the candlelight.
People’s resilience has been worn down over time. Many people nowadays cannot deal with the darkness at nights, and often pay for electricity at the expense of other necessities.
The greatest of challenges, of course, is the uncertainty. There is no hope on the horizon. The attempts at negotiation, and the ongoing clashes on many fronts, are constant reminders that this situation may continue for much longer. One cannot plan for the future. All one can do is fend for oneself and one’s family in the present.
A.W.: Talk about the efforts of the ARS in Aleppo, and the challenges the organization faces as it tries to alleviate the difficulties.
Z.R.: The local ARS body, the Syrian Armenian Red Cross, is part of the Emergency Relief Committee, and is fully engaged in the efforts of that committee. The Red Cross’s center in Nor Kyugh was damaged and forced to shut down early on during the conflict. Thus, the infirmary and medical services divisions were moved to another location, where they continue to this day. Our relief operations have also been moved to other locations, depending on the security situation.
A.W.: What kind of assistance does the ARS provide?
Z.R.: The ARS distributes food and other provisions to around 350 families every month. On holidays, we have special packages that help families maintain their holiday traditions—eggs for Easter, ingredients for cakes and cookies, etc. At different junctures, we’ve also provided additional financial aid to the needy.
Before the war, the Syrian Armenian Red Cross was self-sufficient. As the conflict progressed, we began to heavily depend on the support of the ARS bodies worldwide, coordinated by the Central Executive of the organization. Their support has been instrumental, and many program were implemented thanks to the assistance we received. Here is a brief overview of those programs.
In April 2012, the ARS was the first Armenian organization to initiate a worldwide fundraising effort to support Armenian schools in Syria. In that period, we provided schools with $100,000, through a fund that was established later that year—the Tbrots Fund. The following year, we provided $75,000. During the 2014-15 academic year, we were able to provide $40,000 to the same fund.
The Hot Meal Program has provided meals prepared at our centers to needy families several times a week since October 2012. This program has had a tremendous impact. Many families tell us that even when the meal is provided on a weekday, they sometimes feast upon it on the following Sunday, as they can rarely afford cooking food with meat.
In 2013, when there was a fuel crisis and gas prices skyrocketed, the ARS initiated the Warm House Program, distributing the equivalent of $100 in Syrian pounds to each family, so that they may secure, at least in part, the fuel necessary for heating their homes in the winter cold. The funds were distributed in the beginning of two winters.
Some of our programs have been able to expand or to provide additional support thanks to the initiative of the ARS regions. For example, under our Amanor (New Year) Program, the ARS of Canada funded the distribution of jackets and sweaters to children during the Christmas season.
The ARS of Eastern U.S., in turn, supported several projects focusing on assistance to families. The first round supported families with newborn children in 2013, at a time when procuring food and medication for babies had become extremely expensive. One hundred and sixty families received such assistance in three phases. Later, as international organizations began providing support for families with newborns, the program shifted focus towards families with many children. Here, too, the funds provided by the ARS Eastern region supported many such families.
I would like to note that non-Armenians also receive support from us. For example, when a few years ago a significant amount of assistance was sent from Armenia through the “Oknir Yeghport” initiative, the assistance was also distributed to non-Armenians in our neighborhoods. Similarly, an international organization currently uses Aleppo’s Dikranian Center and its volunteers to provide daily meals to the area’s population, Armenians and non-Armenians alike. There is no discrimination. Conversely, the we also receive food bags from the Red Crescent and distribute it to the people.
A.W.: Many Syrian Armenians have been internally displaced or have left the country. Can you talk about this exodus?
Z.R.: The Armenian population of towns like Tel Abyad, Arabpunar (Kobane), and Der Zor were forced to vacate their towns. As we discussed earlier, Armenians in some parts of Aleppo were also displaced internally, moving to safer areas in the city. Others temporarily moved to Latakya, Tartus, and nearby areas.
A second group has temporarily moved to Lebanon. Others have moved to Armenia. Among these, there is a significant number that wishes to return after the war. Still others have moved to Western countries.
The community leadership cannot and does not ask or force anyone to remain or leave. This is a decision that is taken by the families themselves. There is currently no effort to evacuate the community, however. Such a step implies tremendous responsibility, and we are not in imminent danger as, for example, the Yezidis on Mount Sinjar were. Yes, the situation is volatile, the shelling is ongoing, and battles rage on. However, moving an entire community has tremendous implications, and the truth of the matter is that even those who have moved to Armenia continue to face serious difficulties.
It is our wish that those who have already moved to Armenia receive the necessary support from the Armenian authorities to remain in the country and not use the country as a transit point to the West. After all, if a family wants to leave Aleppo, Armenia should be the most viable destination.
This interview was conducted by G.B. for the Armenian Weekly.
is this destined to Armenians? yes we are resilient and we don’t quit but thanks to our combined organizational skills and networks we will survive this and the wounds will heel but Syria will never be the same
“The community leadership cannot and does not ask or force anyone to remain or leave. This is a decision that is taken by the families themselves.”
This is not true.
For the past 4+ years, the community “leadership” has obviously talking, acting and abstaining in ways which do not leave much choice to those who want to leave, than to stay where they are, in that hellhole.
Moreover, notably at the beginning, there were explicit calls by a certain leadership to refrain from leaving that community.
From this perspective, we take could note of Ms. Reisan’s admission that “there is currently no effort to evacuate the community”.
But the attempt to justify the absence of such an effort with the risks it implies, is ludicrous. Because what she should also admit is that, not only there is no such current effort to evacuate, but there was NEVER, ANY evacuation plan for this community. While the risk for such a plan was much lower 4, 3, or 2 years ago, than now.
And when she is talking about the risks of evacuation, Ms. Reisian would me well-advised to think about the risks of not proceeding to such an evacuation… Considering that Aleppo is in the general area controlled by ISIL, added to the fact that the community “leadership” in question also had the bright idea of expressing their support and loyalty to Bashar El Assad…
“among [those who left], there is a significant number that wishes to return after the war.”
So, they still believe that this war will end ? In a way which will make Syria return to its previous situation ?!
In the best-best case scenario, Bashar will remain in power, but the country will be divided in various zones. The one in which Aleppo falls being the ISIL sector…
In another possible scenario, the Armenian leaders of the Diaspora will be responsible for the mass butchering of Armenians in Aleppo.
Haytoug Chamlian, Montreal
Mr Chamlian’s bitterness would be better directed at those responsible for creating the chaos rather than those who are doing their best to survive within it and retain their dignity and their identity. He should be looking at his own back yard. Why have Armenian “community leaders” in North America never objected to the American sponsored and Canadian encouraged destruction of Syria? Probably for the same reason they never raised a word against the American-led destruction of Iraq’s Armenian community. Chamlian talks about things said “at the beginning”. What did he or his own “community leadership” say at that same beginning, when America’s desire to destroy Syria progressed from a mere longstanding wish to one of actual action? What if Armenians in America had stood up against that establishment’s foreign policy aims? Armenians in America, being historically from the Syrian region, being Christian, being not Muslim, being not Arab, and being the descendents of survivors of genuine oppression and actual genocide, they could have blown holes in America’s lies. But not one word was said, not one demonstration, only silence.
Perhaps the background to Mr Chamlian pro-“evacuation” opinions is that he thinks Montreal’s Armenian community (and its self-appointed “community leaders”) requires regular influxes of immigrants to maintain itself. Montreal’s once modest Armenian community saved itself from extinction by assimilation thanks to influxes of Armenians from Iran, then from influxes from post-Soviet Armenia, and when Armenians arrived from Iraq. But what will it do when when the last Armenian community has been destroyed?
Two important questions were not asked: what needs do they currently have and how can people who want to give get what they need to them?
You have it all wrong, Steve.
. I am talking as an Armenian,
you are judging me as a Canadian
(and you are talking mainly as a Syrian, bty…)
. The evacuation which should have been organized, according to my point of view, is to Armenia/Artsakh; certainly not North America;
. you are vehemently reiterating the pro-Bashar position of Armenians, which has the effect of consolidating the status of our Aleppo compatriots to hostages in the hands of the ISIL jihadists;
. as for y background, in this particular subject, it is actually a “déjà vu”, since this same policy of the Armenian diaspora leadership forced us to remain in Lebanon, during the civil war, instead of making an organized and orderly exit from that lost country; (the fundamental difference being however that, at that time, we did not have an independent Motherland, there was no Armenian State; a relative justification which does not apply with regard to the way the faith of Syrian Armenian is being handled by the leadership in question;
Haytoug
Haytoug, if the Canadian government had had its way two years ago (when it was a particularly vocal advocate of bombing Syria) the Aleppo Armenian community would be extinct by now and all of Syria would be under Islamic State control. Thankfully, opposition elsewhere has so far denied the warmongers their bloodlust. However, almost none of that opposition came from Armenians – a fact that I find unforgivable given the current and the longstanding historical connections that Armenians have with that region.
My post above was censored by Armenian Weekly. In deleted content I talked about Armenian communities in North America and Europe being not self-sustainable in the long term, and that to get around the assimilation problem they are acting in a real sense like a parasite. To survive they have to feed off migration from Armenian communities that are or were genuinely self-sustaining. You might talk of yourself as an Armenian but this sort of identity in a North American context is a personal affectation and aspiration: you choose to be “Armenian”. You can choose it because you have an ancestry that allows it to be chosen – but you could just as well have ignored that ancestry entirely. Being an “Armenian” in this context is highly self-selective and, for many that proclaim themselves to be “Armenian”, could be of no greater significance or depth than wearing a particular piece of designer clothing or being passionate about a particular subject or hobby. In contrast, Armenian communities in Iraq, in Syria, in Lebanon, and in Armenia itself were/are REAL functioning and fully rounded entities, not an individual’s statement identity. So their destruction is genocide, but your Montreal community’s destruction would be just down to assimilation, forgetfulness, and lack of interest.
If you want more people in Artsakh or ROA, the solution is to cure Armenia’s political problems, the corruption and the criminal entities that grasp at the nation’s heart. The solution cannot be to try to shore-up a dwindling native population by supplimenting it with a limited supply of refugees from a genocide.
Thank you for the Armenian Weekly to bring up this important topic. But I’m frankly dissapointed that the interview itself did not go deep into the subject matter even after 5 long years of indifference towards the suffering of our compatriots.
I’d like to address the exodus question. Half of Syria’s population has been displaced by now. Amongst them I’m assuming a similar proportion of Armenians. No Armenian leader has seen such a number of refugees ( yes a decision taken by families themselves ) under their watch in a generation. I keep asking myself, What tangibly has the DIASPORA done to handle the 30k or so Syrian Armenian refugees in Armenia and Beirut in the last 5 years ? Where was the sense of urgency in handling such an emergency ? Where was the organizational capacity that was required to be deployed by the Diaspora and Armenia ? Why did we not assist these refugees w the dignity that they deserved ? Are they not worth the assistance because they ‘ left ‘ and took refuge in Armenia and Lebanon while Syria was being destroyed ?
Or is it acceptable to turn a blind eye and allow western migration be the answer ? Many of these refugees are still stranded and need help today. I would have wanted engerouhi Reisian to comment on the exodus by having a view on what needs to be done for our refugees who out of desperation have voted with their feet. The ones left behind either want to remain there or don’t have the means (or the guts) to leave. Do we have a view on refugees ? Or is it that once you leave Aleppo, we no longer care. To each his own after that ? Is this the definition of a community that’s part of a larger nation ?
History will not look very kindly, on how the world has handled Syrian refugees . Nor will any evaluation of Armenian organizational will & capacities a 100 years after 1915 towards this tragedy.
The ARS has still an opportunity today to mandate a sense of urgency towards this cause in its upcoming convention and be truthful to its mission. The plight of the Syrian Armenian compatriots ( now more than half turned refugees) can no longer be just left to local leaderships. This should now be a pan Armenian issue. Nor should all contributions go to Aleppo. We have 30k refugees outside of Aleppo !
Besides, many families and children of our local leaders seem to be quite adept @ finding means and connections and seem to have left to safety a while back. I ran into many of them in Yerevan over the last 2-3 years. They seem to be doing fine unlike the desperate families I faced in Bourj Hammond , UN camps in Turkey and some slumps of Yerevan.
… Very sad.
Hello Raffy,
(houssam lav es yev hankisd, ungers. garodtsank),
You are raising some questions at the beginning of your comment, about the lack of sufficient support, by the Diaspora organizations, to our compatriots leaving Syria.
They seem to be just rhetorical questions, but allow me to suggest some answers.
The Diaspora organizations did not organize properly the exodus from Syria, because some of the ultimate leaders of those organizations do not want Armenians to leave Syria. (They actually declared it, expressly, at the beginning of the conflict. And afterwards, they started playing with words, to say the same thing – which is also expressed by their continuous inaction in question – . )
Why ?
Because,
a) the disappearance of that community will reduce their “turf” – whatever is left of it, that is -, even more;
and/or
b) they are playing “high politics” with regard to the Syria situation; but that issue is so beyond their abilities, that all they are actually doing is playing with the lives of the Armenians of Aleppo;
Considering what is at stake, namely : the possible slaughter (literally…) of Armenians in Aleppo, we cannot keep silent on this issue. (Btw, Aleppo is the real danger zone, because it is situated within the large sector controlled by ISIL.)
But there is a sub-question, now : at this point, since it is probably too late for a clean exit from Aleppo, why can’t they at least move the Armenians of Aleppo to Damascus ? Since Aleppo is obviously gone forever, while there is a chance that Bashar can keep the Damascus area. The region of Latakie is another, relatively safer haven – considering that the Russians have recently intervened in that area – .
A plausible answer to this sub-question is this : Bashar does not want this, he does not allow it, because he is using Armenians (= Christians of Syria) as a token, a pawn, in his confrontation with the West. From this point of view, it is even possible that he may “arrange” a massacre of the Armenians in Aleppo, for his own agenda. Just like, very possibly, he did it on purpose to allow the temporary invasion of Kessab (fact : there was not one single Syrian soldier at the frontier posts, when the Jihadists walked it, in from Turkey… ).
Lav mna,
Haytoug
Dear Haytoug & Steve,
• Let’s establish the fact that there is a genuine concern in the Diaspora about the situation of Armenians in Syria in general and Aleppo in particular. To start accusing each other about the lack of response from North American Armenian communities (or, European communities) to what their respective governments are doing is not the issue, because being dragged into the politics of Syria does not alleviate the problems that our Syrian/Aleppo compatriots are going through.
• Haytoug is right that this is a “déjà vu” for the Armenians from Lebanon. It might be new for the Armenians in Syria. In the end, history will judge if our policy of ‘maintaining’ the community, even through a civil war, was the right choice or not.
• Steve brings out an interesting topic of self-sustaining vs. assimilating Armenian Diasporan communities. While the topic is very important and needs much more analysis; it is unfortunately a distraction for the purposes of this discussion: The plight of Syrian Armenians and what to do about them.
Armen
This dialogue dates two years ago, is the belief same now that US sponsored destruction of Aleppo and is the plight of Syrian Armenians per se? in what way? Do you think if the airport were closed the region could be safely controlled and IS involved in amnesty?