In Yerevan, Christophe Birvirt calls on society to help refugees

On June 20, in Yerevan, a press conference was held dedicated to the International Day of Refugees and the campaign We Stand Together #WithRefugees, the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent reports.

On June 20, 2016, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees launched the #WithRefugees initiative to sign a petition calling on governments around the world to take collective action and share responsibility for the fate of refugees. At present, the petition gained more than 1.5 million signatures.

At the press conference, Christophe Birvirt, the representative for the UN High Commissioner for Refugees in Armenia, has stated that assistance to refugees is not only a challenge for the government, but for the whole society.

In particular, he treated as effective the cooperation of NGOs and charitable foundations with the Armenian authorities concerning providing assistance to refugees.

"Since the beginning of the conflict, about 22,000 people, mostly ethnic Armenians, moved to Armenia from Syria. Later, many of them left the country, but about 15,000 still remain in Armenia," noted Christophe Birvirt.

As of December 31, 2016, according to the office of the representative for the UN High Commissioner for Refugees in Armenia, 18,477 internally displaced persons (IDPs) from Ukraine, Iran, Iraq, Syria, Nagorno-Karabakh, and several African countries were living in the country.

Christophe Birvirt has reminded the participants of the press conference that, besides refugees from Syria, in 1988-1992, Armenia accepted more than 360,000 Armenian refugees from Azerbaijan. According to him, more than 2000 of them still remain in refugee status.

Full text of the article is available on the Russian page of 24/7 Internet agency ‘Caucasian Knot’.