YEREVAN, APRIL 14, ARMENPRESS. Euronews presented a report on Christians in Syria, reports Armenpress.

The report says before the war Syria was a safe place for the Christians of the Middle East, they were comprising 10% of the population. According to preliminary data, since 2011 every second of them had to leave the country. After the defeat of the Islamic State, some of them returned to Syria, but there is still the danger of numerous Islamist groups which refuse to put down their weapons.

“Christians are first to appear under fire because they are Christians. One can imagine what will be their fate in case of the victory of jihadists. We have already faced a similar event a century ago, in 1915 when the Christians in Anatolia were being killed for being Christians”, representative of the Armenian Union of Belgium Karen Tadevosyan told Euronews.

Euronews writes that in such circumstances it’s not surprising that many of them stood together with the Syrian government during the civil war, including Petros Petrosyan who is from Aleppo, but currently lives in Brussels.

“Syria’s Christians support the Syrian statehood, its unity and territorial integrity. Today together with our government we are restoring peace in our land for the sake of the Syrian people”, Petros Petrosyan said.

The Euronews writes that this doesn’t mean that they oppose political changes. They just think that this can be achieved by peaceful methods.

“Of course, some part of the Syrian people was seeking changes, but they didn’t want war, tens of thousands of killings and millions of refugees, internally displaced people, rocked cities. This was imposed on us by other states which have not reached what they wanted”, Karen Tadevosyan said.

English –translator/editor: Aneta Harutyunyan