4 Armenians injured in Aleppo shelling

July 9, 2014 By administrator

Aleppo’s district of Nor Gyugh was shelled on the evening of July 8, with the explosions heard next to the center of air forces and Cilicia Armenian building. Accoridng to Kantsasar, 4 Armenians- Arpi and Gohar Kuyumjian, Nver Gratanian and Hrip Ghazarian were injured inthe attacks.

Missile attacks on Syria’s Aleppo left 2 (Vrezh Chapaghjurian and Seda Basmajian) dead and 6 injured on June 17.

In early June, Armenian National Committee of America (ANCA) launched a #Save Aleppo campaign calling President Obama to stop anti-Armenian attacks in Syria.

Attacks on the Armenian-populated quarters of Aleppo, Syria, have escalated in recent days, leading local authorities to designate the area a disaster zone.

The campaign aims to urge President Obama to stop the rebel bombing of innocent Christians and all civilians in Aleppo, press Turkey to allow the free flow of Euphrates waters to Syria, answer the ANCA’s concerns regarding Turkey’s role in the forced depopulation of the historically Armenian populated city of Kessab.

Aleppo Plight: Recent attacks on Armenians in Syrian city viewed as continuation of genocide

June 6, 2014 By administrator

By Gohar Abrahamyan
ArmeniaNow reporter

According to scholars in Yerevan, the recent events in Aleppo are continuation of the Armenian genocide and the Armenian community in Aleppo faces extermination.
Images showing vast destruction in Aleppo’s Armenian neighborhoods appeared on the internet in recent days, causing great concern in Armenia where thousands of Syrian nationals of Armenian origin have taken refuge since hostilities began in their country in 2011.

On Friday at a meeting with reporters scientist, ethnologist from Kessab Hakob Cholakian spoke about the situation in Syria saying that during the three years of war the Armenian community in Aleppo suffered most, especially in the suburban districts, where wealthy Armenians, owners of factories lived.

“Nowadays Armenians are concentrated in three districts outside of which there are no other Armenians because of three years of migration. During the last few days another such district, Nor Gyugh, was ruined. The state of Armenians in Aleppo is critical in terms of both safety and livelihood, and at this most dangerous moment we are silent, it’s time to act,” Cholakian said.

Noravank foundation director Gagik Harutyunyan said that in all the countries where the Arab spring took place Christian sections suffered particularly much, a cultural genocide took place.

“The Syrian war endangers our national safety because Azerbaijani mercenaries and Turks are very active on the level of regular army special services, we must be very careful about them,” Harutyunyan said adding that actions realized in the Middle East and in Syria particularly are a direct threat to Armenian security.

“Descendants of Armenian genocide survivors live in the Middle East and they are the bearers of Western Armenian culture and civilization and in case of dissipation not only the physical safety of Armenians but their civilization will be endangered.”

Armenia has strongly condemned the bombardment of Aleppo and, in particular, the city’s Armenian-populated district of Nor Gyugh over the past days, which has caused the loss of lives and destruction.

“We are convinced that the main precondition for progress in the resolution of the Syrian crisis lies in immediate cessation of violence,” Armenian Foreign Ministry spokesman Tigran Balayan said on Thursday, according to the Ministry’s official website.

Earlier, the Armenian Revolutionary Federation (Dashnaktsutyun), a traditional Armenian party operating both in Armenia and its far-flung Diaspora, also issued a statement condemning the rocket attacks on the civilian population in the Syrian city that is home to a sizable Armenian community.

Syria, Aleppo’s Nor Kyugh Declared a Disaster Zone

June 5, 2014 By administrator

Aleppo Armenian Community on the Brink of Demise

ALEPPO—The continued rocket fire by rebel forces in the direction of the mostly-Armenian-populated Nor Kyugh neighborhood of Aleppo has forced officials to declare the area a disaster zone, and threatens the survival of the city’s Armenian community.

The Aleppo News Agency reported that incessant rocket fire from rebel forces, a significant number of which are reportedly Turks or radical Islamists, continued in Nor Kyugh, endangering civilians and causing massive destruction.

Residential buildings in Nor Kyugh have been destroyed or partially demolished, while Armenian community centers and local businesses have been damaged as a result of continued shelling.

Nor Kyugh residents are fleeing the neighborhood, some heading toward the seaside city of Latakia, which is already overflowing with Armenian refugees from the insurgence of Al Qaeda-affiliated terrorist groups in Kessab earlier this spring. Others are seeking refuge in other parts of Aleppo that are not currently under heavy rocket fire, while some are relocating to the basement of the St. Gregory the Illuminator Church, which was damaged earlier this week as a result of the rebel attacks.

Armenian community institutions in Nor Kyugh have also sustained heavy damages, among them the Karen Jeppe Jemaran, the Zavarian and Sahakian schools, as well as the Zavarian and Sahakian kindergartens, the Armenian Catholic Holy Trinity and Zvartnots School, the Arevelk print shop, the Armenian Relief Society’s clinic and social service center and residential building that are owned by the Prelacy.

Armenian-owned businesses and stores, as well as residences are either in complete or partial destruction, making life unbearable for the citizens of the town.

Syria: Armenian churches, schools hit in Aleppo bombings

June 2, 2014 By administrator

Armenian churches, schools, residential houses and stores have come under bomb attacks in Aleppo, Syria amid the growing violence and tension in the city.

The Armenian-populated district of Nor-Kyugh has suffered the heaviest damages, the local weekly Gandzasar says in a Facebook post.

Two ethnic Armenians, Stepan Arushyan and Zareh Ghazaryan, have been wounded in the attacks, but their condition is reported to be satisfactory after medical assistance.

Aleppo-Armenian sources earlier told Tert.am that most of the Armenians had found shelter in their buildings’ cellars to avoid the continuing attacks of makeshift missiles against the district.

Photos by Maria Gabrielyan

At least 22 killed, 77 injured in Aleppo’s Armenian-populated district

May 31, 2014 By administrator

bout 22 barrel bombs were dropped by opposition forces in Nor Gyugh Armenian-populated district of Aleppo Friday evening, killing at least 22 and injuring 77 others, Aleppo Armenian News reports.

The news agency calls on the Armenians of Nor Gyugh not to leave their homes except in cases of urgent necessity and to keep off their windows and balconies.

Syrian troops break rebel siege on Aleppo main prison: monitor

May 22, 2014 By administrator

May 22, 2014 – 14:06 AMT

Reuters Syrian troops have broken a year-long rebel siege on Aleppo’s main prison after heavy fighting with al Qaeda fighters and other Islamist brigades, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group said on Thursday, May 22, according to Reuters.

It said forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad entered the prison compound in military vehicles and gunfire was heard.

Syrian state media did not report on the fighting around the prison on Thursday, but earlier said Assad’s forces had captured the town of Hailan next to the prison, about 5 miles northeast of Aleppo city.

Assad’s forces and rebels have been fighting for two years in Aleppo, Syria’s largest city before the start of the three-year civil war, and the countryside around it.

Rebels, including fighters from al Qaeda’s Nusra Front, have tried repeatedly to storm the prison and free its inmates, bombing and breaching its outer walls but failing to take full control. The complex holds around 3,000 prisoners.

The recapture of the prison and its surroundings means that Assad’s forces have control over the north-east approach to Aleppo, the Observatory’s Rami Abdulrahman said.

The Britain-based, anti-Assad Observatory, which monitors the violence in Syria through a network of activists and medical and military sources, says more than 162,000 people have been killed in the conflict, which grew out of protests against Assad’s rule.

Aleppo Armenian buildings face fresh bomb attacks

April 8, 2014 By administrator

The Armenian-populated districts in Syria’s economic capital have come under fresh bomb attacks as the country continues facing armed tensions between Islamist militants and government forces.

A local news outlet says in Facebook post that 40 mortar mines and a missile exploded in the city, hitting also building roofs in the Armenian districts.

The blasts have left the population in panic. They are said to have also caused a huge material damage.

Syrian army advances to retake Homs, Aleppo

June 13, 2013 By administrator

PARIS / ALEPPO

The Syrian army continues to the heartland of Homs and Aleppo as Paris urges the international community to stop the progression. ‘We must stop this progression before Aleppo,’ French Foreign Minister Fabius says The Syrian army continues to advance to the strategic cities of Homs and Aleppo as France has urged the international community to stop the progression of Syrian troops, backed by Hezbollah fighters and Iran.

After winning a strategic victory by retaking Qusayr, an important town near the border with Lebanon, Syrian troops are now focusing their attention on Homs and Aleppo as they continue to gain ground against the rebels. The army operation is conducted in the southern and northern countryside of Aleppo, according to activists, and the aim is to cut off the rebels’ supply line from Turkey and attempt to regain control of the north. Intensified clashes are also reported in Homs and its suburbs as the army closed in on besieged, rebel-held neighborhoods of the provincial capital. Activists said there were heavy clashes, mostly in the neighborhood of Wadi Sayeh. The fighting appeared to be an attempt by government forces to separate two main rebel-held areas in the city, Khaldiyeh and the center of Homs.

“We must stop this progression before Aleppo. It is the next target of Hezbollah and of the Iranians,” French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said on France 2 television.

“We need to rebalance things because over the past few weeks the troops of Bashar al-Assad and especially Hezbollah and the Iranians, along with Russian arms, have gained considerable ground.” But he did not expand on how Syrian troops, buoyed by military support from its Shiite allies Hezbollah and Iran, should be stopped. Fabius’ comments came as U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry was scheduled to meet with his British counterpart, William Hague, later yesterday to discuss Syria. Hague warned last week that regime gains on the ground raised a new hurdle to the planned peace conference. “The regime has gained ground on the ground, again at the cost of huge loss of life and the indiscriminate use of violence against the civilian population,” Hague told BBC television.

“That makes the Geneva conference harder to bring about and to make a success. It makes it less likely that the regime will make enough concessions in such negotiations, and it makes it harder to get the opposition to come to the negotiations.”

On June 11, France’s Foreign Ministry also warned that the crisis was at a “turning point.”

“What should we do under these conditions to reinforce the opposition armed forces? We have had these discussions with our partners, with the Americans, the Saudis, the Turks, many others,” said ministry spokesman Philippe Lalliot. “We cannot leave the opposition in the current state.” The European Union, under pressure from London and Paris, last month failed to renew an arms embargo on Syria, leaving individual member states free from August 1 to supply weapons to the opposition, if they decide to do so.

Fabius said France had not yet decided what to do after the deadline. “Bashar… used chemical weapons in an outrageous manner. We must stop him because, if there is no rebalancing on the ground, there will be no peace conference in Geneva as the opposition will refuse to come,” he said. The United States said it was evaluating information received from France that Paris has billed as proof that chemical weapons have been used in Syria.