European aid to Christian Syrians is tantamount to deportation, archbishop says

A church leader in Syria has compared the aid given by some countries to enable Christians to emigrate to a deportation.

On a visit to Paris, the Melkite Greek archbishop Archbishop of Aleppo, Jean-Clément Jeanbart, said half of the Christians in his city, the largest in Syria, had already left. Christians – mostly Eastern Orthodox, Eastern Catholics and Oriental Orthodox – made up about 10 per cent of the country's pre-war population.

"We've not only seen people leave, but also seen countries offering them free flights and visas they've hardly asked for," he told Radio Notre Dame. "They are taking the few remaining people… it is as if there were a deportation."

Those who left were mostly the same ones who could rebuild the country after the war, he told another radio station, RTL. "It is the middle class, the backbone of our society, that is being absorbed."

Jeanbart did not say which states he meant but said that foreign countries only saw only suffering refugees who had needed to be taken in, while Syrians saw the damage that the exodus had caused.

"We think that leaving harms the country and the migrants themselves, because they are dreaming of a better world, which would could exist if there are reforms in their own country," he added.

The Christians remaining in Aleppo attend religious services more actively now than before, according to the archbishop said. "We have no problem practising our religion wherever the government is in control. We have very good relations with the Muslims, who make up 80 per cent of the population."

The Church's schools can also operate in government-controlled areas, educating Christian and Muslim pupils, he said.

Jeanbart said he was neither for nor against President Bashar al-Assad, but added: "If the regime collapses and the president leaves, there will be countless local wars everywhere. People will kill each other. It will be terrible."