The military actions in Aleppo force the Armenian community to immigrate. Though the flow of Syrian-Armenians is not big, the number of people wishing to return to their historic homeland grows, Russian Nezavisimaya gazetta writes.

The paper says in the first half of the running year 3,248 Syrian citizens have applied for getting Armenian citizenship, tens of them asked to be granted status of refugees. According to Armenia’s State Migration Service all the applications have been satisfied. Besides, the authorities have facilitated the entrance regime for Syrian-Armenians who can get visas on the border or in the airports.

The author of the article Yuri Simonyan says taking into consideration the social-economic issues in Armenia and high unemployment rate, it is difficult to forecast how many Syrian-Armenians would like to move to their historic homeland.

“Some of the Syrian-Armenians confess that Armenia is a safe place for them to wait until the crisis is over and decide what to do after. Some of them though have stated about their inten-tion to settle in Armenia permanently,” Simonyan writes.

Armenian Weekly also referred to the issue of the Syrian-Armenians, saying that immigrating to Armenia is not as simple as one might imagine. “First, many in the community are not willing to abandon the country—Syria—that they have called home for decades. Even if the will is there, abandoning homes and properties—temporarily or otherwise—has proven to be an impediment. The real estate market in Syria at the moment is suffering, and without financial security, surviv-ing in Armenia will have its share of challenges.

Historian Ara Sanjian at the University of Michigan-Dearborn believes Armenians worldwide must provide moral and financial support to the Armenians in Syria, “especially if and when schools reopen in the fall.”