Below is the most recent update the AMAA has received from Rev. Haroutune Selimian, President of the Armenian Protestant Community in Syria. We ask that you continue to keep our brothers and sisters in your prayers.

Since the month of April 2016, Aleppo has been going through a hellish war, which just seems to be getting worse and worse.

I’m writing this, as we see shells continue falling on civilian areas where there is not a single gun pointing at anybody.  This has been the case for long and we have been through far too many funerals and seen too many people leave for safer areas.  Five days ago the shelling didn’t stop for a minute and we actually sent all our students back to their homes as the schools were being targeted.

With the continuous aid from the West the ‘anti-government forces’ are getting more and more sophisticated weapons, although that area is supposed to be under siege. We wonder!

Latest developments: Syrian Army and rebels were locked in fierce clashes Sunday on the western edges of Aleppo, where 38 civilians have been killed in two days of opposition rocket fire.  Among those killed over the two-day period were 14 children.
Another 250 civilians have been wounded in heavy bombardment by anti-government factions since Friday morning.  The barrage is part of a major assault by rebels and allied jihadists to break a three-month government siege of Aleppo’s Eastern half, where more than 250,000 people still live.  Rebel fighters have launched hundreds of rockets and shells onto the Western districts from positions inside the city and on its Western edges.

The rebels were trying to push East from the Dhaiyet al-Assad district –most of which they seized in the first day of the onslaught –towards Hamdaniyeh.  (Hamdaniyeh is a regime-held district directly adjacent to opposition controlled Eastern neighborhoods.)

Fighting lasted all night and into Sunday morning, with air strikes and artillery fire along the western battlefronts heard even in the eastern districts.

Plumes of smoke could be seen snaking up from the city’s skyline.  The offensive has seen an estimated 1,500 opposition fighters mass on the Western edges of Aleppo since Friday. They include local Aleppo rebels and reinforcements from Idlib province to the West, among them the jihadist Fateh al-Sham Front, which changed its name from Al-Nusra Front after breaking ties with Al-Qaeda.

We stick to our faith and work for peace in our country and a future for our people.  We continue to pray that the violence will cease and the reconciliation process will start.

We want to continue to live in this wonderful country and we want to see the country re-established as soon as possible.  We love Syria! We do not want to see the country destroyed.  We believe that we can build a new Aleppo and a new Syria on a strong foundation.  We continue to hope and pray.

We look forward to seeing the world cry out for peace in the Middle East.  We certainly need one!

Rev. Haroutune Selimian, President
Armenian Protestant Community in Syria

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The AMAA’s focal point rests in our ‘Syria Lifeline’ to help families resettle in Armenia.