Growing up in the 1960s, Sarkis Assadourian felt safe and sheltered in Aleppo’s buzzing Meidan district, in what was then Hafez Assad’s Syria.

“It was a shopping area, like a village, and 90 per cent of the people were Armenian,” said the former MP for Brampton and Don Valley North. “Nobody bothered us. The Muslims called us ‘our Armenian brothers.’”

But now Aleppo has fallen into the flames of a vicious civil war, with thousands of Armenian-Syrians fleeing to other countries — as their families once fled to Syria for sanctuary after the 1915 Ottoman genocide.

With a death toll of about 70,000 Syrians since the uprising began almost two years ago, life for minorities is becoming increasingly perilous. Last Thursday, more than 60 people died and hundreds more were wounded in bombing attacks in the capital Damascus. Syrian warplanes later struck targets near the Damascus International Airport.

Although Christian Armenians represent only 120,000 of Syria’s 22 million people, they are some of the most highly educated professionals. Threats, kidnappings, killings and the bombing and burning of Armenian churches have driven thousands to abandon their businesses, homes and life savings.

Read More: The Star in Syria

But many who have left the country blame Islamist rebel groups as much as President Bashar Assad for the bloodbath that has engulfed them. Their plight adds to the apprehension of Western leaders over the future if and when the opposition takes power. Canada has refused to recognize the Syrian opposition unless it rejects extremism and endorses inclusion of minorities.

“Assad was wrong,” said Assadourian in an interview. “He used a cannon to kill a fly. But what will happen if fundamentalists take over? Christians are losing ground throughout the Middle East. In Syria, there will be very few left.”

Armenians, as well as other Christians and Assad’s own Alawite minority, may not embrace his regime, but they fear new rounds of persecution and killing at the hands of extremists. They also fear the all-against-all civil war that brought neighbouring Lebanon — similarly ethnically and religiously divided — to its knees after 15 years of strife that began in 1975.

That’s a far cry from the tolerant Aleppo of Assadourian’s childhood memories. The majority of Syria’s Armenians lived in the thriving commercial centre, which is now in ruins.

“Our teacher was a Sunni Muslim, and she adopted an Armenian orphan. There was no hatred toward our community.”

Although the older Assad ruled with an iron fist, brutally crushing rebellions and torturing and murdering thousands of suspected opponents, he understood his own vulnerability as a member of a minority. He secularized the country, railed against “odious narrow-mindedness and loathsome bigotry,” and tried unsuccessfully to change the constitution so that non-Muslims could be president.

Now thousands of Armenians have joined the more than 600,000 Syrians who have fled as refugees, some of them anxiously hiding in the country they once feared most, Turkey.

At least 6,000 have been taken in by struggling Armenia, which has given them aid, medical care and expedited residency and citizenship in spite of its strained budget. Some have headed for even poorer Nagorno-Karabakh, a disputed territory controlled by Armenia, but also claimed by Azerbaijan.

Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading...

Many look back at Syria with longing, but fading hope that they will be able to return. Ultimately, says Assadourian, flight of minorities like Armenians won’t help a post-Assad Syria become a democratic society.

“Whoever is in power must understand that if you are going to run a country, you have to widen your base.”

Read more about: