The Independent’s Near East correspondent Robert Fisk is concerned about the fate of the Syrian-Armenians. They are being persecuted once again, and this time-by Islamist rebels. The journalist recalls that he had participated in the exhumation of the victims of the Armenian Genocide near the Habur River of Syria nearly 30 years ago. “It wasn’t easy finding those bones since the course of the Habur River (east from the Syrian Der Zor) has changed. So many bodies had been thrown into its waters that the course had changed towards the east. The relics were placed in the area near the local Armenian Church. Currently, the same church where the bones of Armenians were gathered and where the Armenians apparently found their last landmark has been damaged during the war.” “The church in Der Zor is a monument to the victims of the Holocaust of the Armenians and isn’t less sacred than the Yad Vashem of Israel for the victims of the Jewish Holocaust,” Fisk writes.

The Independent’s correspondent also mentions several other examples of the persecutions against the Armenians. “The Armenians, as well as other Christians in Syria, aren’t supporters of the revolution against Assad, even though they can rarely be considered Assad’s supporters…The inheritors of the Armenian Christians who survived the Genocide and took refuge in Syria are once again compelled to escape to Lebanon, Europe and the Americas.” According to Fisk, there are up to 65 Syrian-Armenian victims, and another 100 have been kidnapped.”

“In two years, the Armenians will be marking the “Centennial of their Holocaust”,” Fisk recalls. That same year, Turkey, which still denies the Armenian Genocide and supports Syrian rebels, will mark the anniversary of its victory in Gallipoli, which helped Turkey avoid occupation in 1915. “Armenians also participated in that battle, but they were obviously dressed in Turkish uniforms. But I’m willing to bet that the Turkish government will soon eliminate those people and won’t even remember them in 2015,” Fisk writes, reports InoPressa.

Robert Fisk has been to Turkey and Armenia several times and has always talked about the need for Armenian Genocide recognition in his articles. His book The First Holocaust is about the Armenian Genocide and has been translated into several languages.

Syria has been in a civil war for the past two years. In that period, based on the UN’s statistics, more than 126,000 people have died, 2 million have become refugees and another 4 million have been internally displaced. Nearly 6,000 Syrians are killed on a daily basis.

The Armenians in Syria are mainly based in Aleppo and Damascus. Prior to the war, there were up to 80,000 Armenians living in Syria. Currently, nearly 10,000 Syrian-Armenians have settled in Armenia, and 5,000 are in Lebanon. In the past two-and-a-half years, 65 Syrian-Armenians have been killed in Syria.

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