The first of the wave of Syrian refugees were Armenian Syrians, but Armenians, who found shelter in Toronto, in fact become a refugee for the second time.

“Armenpress” reports, Canadian The Star periodical writes about this, stating the 100 years ago many Armenians fled to Syria to escape the Armenian Genocide. It means that the first refugees Canada welcomed are the grandchildren and great-grandchildren of those who escaped the Genocide in 1915. “We felt the same feelings our grandmother and grandfather felt. The technology is different — they moved by walking — but the feelings are the same; we are living out ancestors’ life”, Betty Panossian Minassian, one of the refugees sheltered in Canada mentioned.

The Star mentioned that many Armenians, abandoning their homes, took the keys with them, hoping to return one day and keep them up till now. Mgrdich Panossian left the key to his house at the neighbor saying “I hope we will return soon”. “It was war. The safety of our children was an issue. At Easter, in 2013, a bomb fell on the balcony next to ours. We lived on the top floor. A miracle, the shrapnel didn’t hit us”, Panossian added. His wife Alin said, “We moved to another apartment — my mother’s, on the second floor of a building in another part of the city.”

“Our daughter began to have nightmares”, she said, “If those bad guys come, do you have stones to throw, to defend us? Stones are no defense against bullets and bombs”