DAMASCUS — Armenia evacuated its embassy from Damascus as Islamist-led rebels entered the Syrian capital and overthrew the country’s longtime President Bashar al-Assad at the weekend.
“Due to the security situation in Syria, the diplomatic staff of the Armenian Embassy in Damascus will temporarily continue its work from Beirut,” the Armenian Foreign Ministry said in a statement released on Sunday.
Contact with Armenian citizens will be maintained from the Armenia’s Embassy in Beirut through the following hotline: +96176447205 (mobile).
Armenia also effectively shut down its consulate in Aleppo shortly before the northern Syrian city fell late last month to the rebels led by the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) Islamist militant group. Both diplomatic missions had functioned throughout the Syrian civil war.
An estimated 80,000 ethnic Armenians lived in the Middle Eastern country when the war broke out in 2011. The once thriving community is believed to have shrunk by more than half since then. Thousands of its members took refuge in Armenia over a decade ago.
Armenia’s Office of the High Commissioner for Diaspora Affairs said on December 5 that the “first group” of Syrian Armenians that managed to flee Aleppo is due to be flown to Yerevan from Damascus December 14. The Armenian Foreign Ministry statement indicated, however, that the flight has been cancelled. It said that there is no “safe possibility” of evacuating Syrian Armenians at the moment.
Meanwhile, the spiritual leadership of the local Armenian community urged its members to stay “discreet and cautious” in the current circumstances and leave their homes “only if necessary.” It also said that the community will continue to strive for Syria’s territorial integrity and welfare and assist in its “reconstruction efforts.”
On December 9, 2024, the leaders of the military administration of Aleppo met with the heads of the Armenian and Christian communities, Kantsasar newspaper reports.
