Nonprofits plan fundraiser to aid ethnic Armenians in war-torn Syria

Local nonprofit leaders are hoping to raise $1 million to aid ethnic Armenians who are suffering the effects of a nearly five-year civil war in Syria, where President Bashar al-Assad’s regime and armed rebels are fighting each other, as well as the Islamic State, or ISIS.

An estimated 250,000 people have been killed in the conflict, which has created a huge refugee crisis in the region and throughout Europe.

Among the victims are Syrian Armenians, who are Christians, and have been displaced and deprived of basic needs such as food, water and shelter, while bombings and mortar shelling are threatening their lives, local charity officials said last week.

Representatives of the Glendale-based Syrian Armenian Relief Fund and Armenian Relief Society gathered at the headquarters of the Western Diocese of the Armenian Church in Burbank last Wednesday to discuss an upcoming telethon to support Armenians in Syria.

“The Armenian community will come together,” said Raffi Kandeerjian, vice president of the relief fund.

The telethon, which will air live from 2 to 8 p.m. on Feb. 21 on Horizon TV, USArmenia, ARTN/SHANT and via web stream, will be produced by the relief fund. Established in 2012, the organization has already sent more than $1 million to help victims of the civil war during the past four years.

Vazken Madenlian, chairman of the telethon committee, said the single event’s $1 million goal is “a little ambitious,” but he said, “we’re talking about a matter of life or death.”

In the early part of last century, there were an estimated 250,000 ethnic Armenians living in Syria, relief officials said. However, in the past 20 years, that number dwindled to roughly 150,000 before the start of the war. There may now be less than 30,000 still living in Syria, mostly in the city of Aleppo, though reliable figures are unavailable.

The relief fund has good accountability of how its funds are used to aid the beleaguered Armenian community in Syria, said John Titizian, chairman of the relief fund’s executive committee, and every dollar raised through the telethon will be sent to an aid group in Aleppo with “none whatsoever” diverted to overhead expenses.

Most of the money has been used for food, water and medical aid, though some has been used to make repairs to buildings to make them habitable, officials said. Some money has also paid for relocation of displaced Syrian Armenians seeking refuge in Armenia or for tuition at schools in the Syrian cities where most Armenians live.

The schools also provide “a certain amount of normalcy” in the midst of the chaos, Titizian said. Officials said there are an estimated 3,500 to 3,800 school children in Aleppo, and suspending their education would also make it harder for them to catch up when the conflict ends.

In a phone interview last week, Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Burbank), who has advocated for humanitarian aid for Syrians, called the situation for Armenians in that country “painfully poignant,” given the fact that they had sought refuge there 100 years ago fleeing the Armenian Genocide in what is now the Republic of Turkey.

“It’s highly important that an organized effort is made in the community,” Schiff said. “It is really a life-and-death situation for many people in Syria right now.”

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Chad Garland, chad.garland@latimes.com

Twitter: @chadgarland