Syria’s army confirmed on Saturday that the rebels seized “large parts” of Aleppo. It said it has withdrawn its troops from Aleppo temporarily “to prepare a counteroffensive.”
“This escalation made it impossible for the Armenian humanitarian demining and medical team, which has been conducting its mission in the Aleppo region since 2019, to continue its activities,” read a statement released by the Defense Ministry in Yerevan earlier in the day.
“In light of these developments, a decision was made to temporarily suspend the team’s operations in Aleppo,” the statement said, adding that the Armenian military personnel were flown back to Armenia the previous night.
Yerevan deployed, with Russia’s support and encouragement, more than 80 demining specialists, army medics and other servicemen tasked with protecting them to the Aleppo region in 2019, prompting criticism from the United States. It did not end this “humanitarian” mission during and after the 2020 war with Azerbaijan that resulted in grave security challenges to Armenia.
Armenia was one of the few countries that did not cut ties with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s regime and maintained functioning diplomatic missions in Damascus and Aleppo throughout the civil war.
An estimated 80,000 ethnic Armenians, most of them descendants of survivors of the 1915 Armenian genocide in Ottoman Turkey, lived in Syria before the outbreak of its bloody civil war in 2011. At least half of them reportedly fled the country during the fighting. Thousands took refuge in Armenia.
Most Syrian Armenians lived in Aleppo. It is not clear who many of them remained there just before the latest escalation. In a statement released on Friday, the leadership of the local Armenian community urged its members to “stay at home and not succumb to panic.”
As of Saturday afternoon, the Armenian government did not say whether it will try to help the remaining Aleppo Armenians flee to other parts of Syria or Armenia.
The rebel offensive was launched from Syria’s northern Idlib province where Turkey has for years had military presence and sponsored militant groups fighting against Syrian government forces.
According to Armenian officials, Ankara recruited thousands of Syrian mercenaries in Idlib and sent to them to fight on Azerbaijan’s side in the Nagorno-Karabakh war that broke out in September 2020. The Armenian claims were backed by France and, implicitly, Russia.
Also, multiple reports by Western media quoted members of Islamist groups in the rebel-held province as saying in September and October 2020 that they are deploying to Azerbaijan in coordination with the Turkish government. Turkey and Azerbaijan denied the presence of any foreign mercenaries in the Azerbaijani army ranks.
Two Syrian men were captured by Karabakh Armenian forces during the fighting. An Armenian court sentenced them to life imprisonment in May 2021.