ALEPPO, Syria (North Press) – For years, George Addas, 65, a resident of Sulaymaniyah neighborhood in the city of Aleppo, refused his children’s repeated requests to him and his wife to join them and travel to Canada.
However, after recent Turkish threats of launching a military operation on areas in northern Syria, Addas says that he may yield to his children’s request and immigrate with his wife.
“If Turkey launches a military operation, I may leave my city. Turkey may ignite the war again and put Aleppo in a cycle of killing and indiscriminate bombardment that may be more deadly and painful than what the city experienced at the beginning of the war,” he said.
On May 23, Erdogan announced his intensions of launching a new military operation on northern Syria to push out the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) which he regards as terrorists. Later on June 1 Erdogan specified his goals in the two northern cities of Manbij and Tel Rifaat.
Christians in Aleppo express their fears of the potential Turkish attack and believe that the military operation may lead to the emigration of those who have remained in the city during the 11-year-old Syrian conflict.
Since the beginning of the Syrian crisis in 2011, large numbers of Christians have emigrated Aleppo. The numbers increased when the Turkish-backed Syrian opposition forces, also known as the Syrian National Army (SNA), took control of some neighborhoods in the city, leaving the Christian-majority neighborhoods almost empty.
The most prominent factors for the exodus of Christians were the lack of security and the discrimination towards the city’s minorities, which was encouraged by the SNA factions when they controlled the city, according to Christian residents of Aleppo.
The economic and living difficulties and the government’s inability to give the residents any reassurances back then played a key role in the mass emigration.
In addition, the presence of Turkey and its affiliated SNA factions in Aleppo countryside has raised their concerns of being subjected to massacres.
Addas points with his hands to the apartment building in which he lives, and says that it gives clear evidence of the size of the Christian immigration from Aleppo, “for out of ten houses in the five-floor building, there is only me and my wife.”
Prior to the Syrian war, the neighborhoods of Sulaymaniyah, al-Aziziyah, al-Siryan al-Qadeema, and al-Siryan al-Jadeeda, al-Midan, al-Jdaideh and al-Telal were predominately Christians.
According to Abdul Nour Hajjar, 75, a retired history professor from Aleppo University, the Christian existence in the city before the outbreak of the Syrian conflict exceeded 12% of the total population, but today it is no more than 1%.
Hajjar believes that the Turkish interference in the Syrian war and “supporting extremist groups such as ISIS, al-Qaeda and other groups, which killed, kidnapped and abused Aleppian Christians, in addition to its indiscriminate bombardment of the Christian neighborhoods, were the reason behind their exodus.”
He warned that the Turkish operation “will prompt whoever left of them to flee the city.”
Turkey has always been the “biggest threat to the Christian existence in the Middle East. The Christians, because of Turkey, have turned from an essential community in Syria to a minority struggling to survive and maintain existence,” the professor said.
Father Tony Sayegh, 49, from the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of Aleppo, does not differ in his opinion from the others.
“Any new Turkish attack on northern Syria will be a repetition of the death scenario that affected Aleppo and its Christian neighborhoods,” Sayegh said.
He believes that any green light, whether from Russia or Western countries, for Turkey to launch its new offensive “will be tantamount to participating in killing and displacing the Syrian people, and especially Christians.”