MIGRASYL

News on migration and asylum from around the region - Nouvelles de la région sur les questions de migration et d'asile

Tuesday, December 11, 2012

[Syria, Armenia] The Wall Street Journal - Armenia Embraces Syrians, Warily


[Picture from same article - copyright online.wsj.com, 4/12/2012 – Image Justin Vela]

4.12.2012. Syria's war, which has already sparked refugee crises just across its border in Turkey, Jordan and Lebanon, is also bringing strains to Armenia, a Christian country hundreds of miles away.

Ethnic Armenians fleeing primarily from Aleppo, Syria's commercial hub and a major battleground in its civil war, have found an unlikely meeting point in Armenia's capital, on a dusty side street bracketed by Soviet-era apartment blocks. Buzzing with machinery, and heavy with the smell of motor oil, Glinkai Street houses more than a dozen metal and auto workshops where groups of Syrian-Armenian men gather to seek jobs, drink tea and trade the latest grim news from home.

"I'm lucky, since there's not much work here," said a 27-year-old who gave his name as Tigran. He said he arrived from Aleppo with his mother in September and now makes $200 a month replacing pistons in car engines. "People who can't work have no way to block out what they've left behind."

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