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Press Release: Sydney-Based Dance Group Heading Home From Lebanon

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  • Press Release: Sydney-Based Dance Group Heading Home From Lebanon

    PRESS RELEASE
    Diocese of the Armenian Church of Australia & New Zealand
    10 Macquarie Street
    Chatswood NSW 2067
    AUSTRALIA
    Contact: Laura Artinian
    Tel: (02) 9419-8056
    Fax: (02) 9904-8446
    Email: [email protected]

    18 July 2006

    SYDNEY-BASED DANCE GROUP HEADING HOME FROM LEBANON

    Sydney, Australia - The Hamazkaine Sevan Dance Group and entourage
    of parents and minders are now making their safe passage home from
    Lebanon.

    After spending anxious days and moments in what is now become war torn
    Beirut yet again, the 80 plus group was bussed in a covert operation
    through Syria and are at this very moment in Amman, Jordan from where
    they will fly home to Sydney.

    Throughout this ordeal, the office of the Primate of the Armenian
    Church and Welfare Centre has been a contact point for media and
    government departments in collaboration with Sydney's Armenian
    community leaders and organisations.

    On Saturday, 15 July Archbishop Aghan Baliozian, Primate of the Diocese
    of the Armenian Church of Australia and New Zealand met with community
    leaders and families of the stranded group members at the Panoyan
    Cultural Centre in Bonnyrigg at a press conference. Loved ones were
    assured the Armenian Community of Sydney had banded together and in
    collaboration with the Australian Government were exhausting every
    avenue to mobilise the safe passage of the group.

    There has been overwhelming local and community media coverage of the
    events as they have unfolded. Now the local Armenian Community eagerly
    awaits the safe arrival of the group in Sydney which is anticipated
    in the next few days.

    The Hamazkaine Sevan Dance Group has been touring Armenia, Syria and
    Lebanon since mid-June performing at an international dance festival
    in Armenia and a series of concerts in the motherland as well as in
    Beirut and Aleppo. It was on the morning of their due departure from
    Beirut when the airport bomb strike happened.

    Yesterday, contact was established with the group by Archbishop
    Baliozian who passed on the blessings and prayers of His Holiness
    Karekin II Supreme Patriarch and Catholicos of All Armenians.

    There are still thousands of Australians stranded in Beirut and the
    foremost evacuation of the Armenian dance troupe which consists mainly
    of teenage youth remains nothing short of a miracle for the anxious
    parents and families in Sydney. The Armenian Community is forever
    grateful to the Department of Foreign Affairs, the Australian Embassy
    in Lebanon and the Australian Government for the tireless efforts to
    ensure the safe passage home of our children.

    We thank our Almighty Father for His Divine intervention. We trust
    in Him to bring the group safely home to reunite with their families
    very soon. Our prayers are now for the thousands still stranded in
    Beirut that they too will be led to the safe haven of Australia.
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