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  • Armenian refugee camp to be demolished

    http://www.dailystar.com.lb/printable.asp?art_ID=3 D94885&cat_ID=1##

    Copyright (c) 2008 The Daily Star

    Friday, August 08, 2008


    Armenian refugee camp to be demolished


    By Willy Lowry
    Special to The Daily Star



    BURJ HAMMOUD: Sanjak camp is disappearing. The expanding Beirut suburb
    of Burj Hammoud will consume the 20,000-square-meter area within the
    next few years, and in the process eliminate one of the last remaining
    Armenian refugee camps in Lebanon. Sanjak is being demolished to
    accommodate the growing population of Burj Hammoud and its busy
    shopping district.

    The Burj Hammoud municipality plans to replace Sanjak with St. Jacques
    Plaza, a commercial and residential center.

    Vasken K. Chekijian of VKC Design and Planning is the architect in
    charge of the project. He said that the plaza, which is the first
    project of its kind supported by a municipality in Lebanon, will
    consist of two eight-floor apartment buildings and one 10-floor
    apartment building. The plaza will also have a landscaped area, he
    added. It will also contain the first multi-storey parking garage in
    Lebanon, he said.

    Today, a large field of rubble and a few rows of dilapidated buildings
    are all that is left of Sanjak camp. Streams of running water flow
    through narrow walkways that are cluttered with debris. Personal
    belongings such as sneakers and clothes lie abandoned in empty homes.

    The camp was established in 1939, in response to Turkey's annexation
    of Alexandretta, an autonomous territory, within French mandated
    Syria. Historian Vahe Tachjian wrote in an e-mail to The Daily Star
    that approximately 15,000 Armenians lived in Alexandretta, which was
    located at the northeast corner of the Mediterranean Sea, an area that
    is now the Turkish province of Hatay.

    According to information provided by Tachjian, the majority of the
    Armenian population of Alexandretta fled the province in July of 1939,
    just prior to its inclusion into Turkey. They migrated south to French
    Mandate Lebanon. They settled in various refugee camps throughout the
    country, which had been set up by the French High Commission. In the
    fall of 1939 a small number of the fleeing Armenians settled inland of
    an already established "quarantine" area - the present day Karantina -
    along Beirut's northern coast and next to Burj Hammoud, which at the
    time was farmland.

    The name "Sanjak" is Turkish for "district" or "province." It alludes
    to the lost Armenian "Sanjak of Alexandretta," from which the camp's
    settlers originated.

    Throughout the last half of the 20th century the camp gradually
    expanded and its population diversified. The camp grew to include
    several other ethnic groups, primarily immigrants from Syria,
    Southeast Asia and Armenia, said Elyse Semerdjian, a professor of
    Middle East History at Whitman College in the United States who took
    up the history of Sanjak in a recent issue of the American publication
    Armenian Weekly.

    While immigrants from various parts of the region moved into the camp,
    many of the original Armenians who could afford to move relocated to
    Burj Hammoud. Raffi Kokoghlanian, the deputy mayor of Burj Hammoud,
    said that just prior to the first phase of demolition, only 30 percent
    of the people living in the camp were descendants of the original
    Armenian inhabitants.

    In recent years, as Burj Hammoud has expanded and prospered, the camp
    has remained impoverished.

    Kokoghlanian says that for the past several years the Municipal
    Council debated what should become of Sanjak camp, which he said had
    become "a slum and problematic."

    The council, he added, decided to build "something that would improve
    and increase the accessibility of Burj Hammoud's shopping district and
    create more middle-class living space."

    According to Chekijian, the plaza will create 184 new apartments,
    which will be affordable to the lower-middle class, and the parking
    complex will add 950 parking spaces to the cramped suburb. St. Jacques
    will also have 70 commercial shops.

    Today, half the camp has been leveled. Semerdjian estimated that the
    camp originally contained about 300 shops and homes that housed around
    160 families, while fewer than 45 homes remain.

    Semerdjian believes "Sanjak Camp lies at a crucial intersection," she
    wrote, "not only for the commercial vitality of Burj Hammoud, but also
    for the moral consciousness of the greater Armenian community."

    The Armenian diaspora has created a large and relatively affluent
    community in Lebanon. They number roughly 150,000 and represent
    approximately 4 percent of the country's population. Many are
    descendants of people who escaped the Armenian genocide, however;
    some, like those who live in Sanjak, are the progeny of the roughly
    15,000 Armenians who fled Alexandretta in 1939.

    Today, the majority of Lebanese Armenians reside in either Burj
    Hammoud or Anjar, a town in the Beqaa.

    Although no census has been conducted in Lebanon since 1932, it is
    believed that 150,000 people reside in Burj Hammoud, of whom 80
    percent are Armenian.


    According to information provided by Semerdjian, many of the original
    Armenian refugee camps were still standing 20 years ago.

    The increasing urbanization of cities and the need for more space,
    which is something not unique to Lebanon, has led to the eradication
    of important historic and cultural sites in countries throughout the
    world, and this may become the fate of the Armenian refugee camps in
    Lebanon.

    Semerdjian used Tyro camp as an example. The camp, which was located a
    few blocks away from Sanjak in Burj Hammoud, was recently leveled and
    replaced by the Harboyan buildings, said Semerdjian.

    For the moment, progress on the St. Jacques project has come to a
    halt. The remaining residents are refusing to let the municipality
    buy them out, saying that they are not being offered enough money.

    Semerdjian wrote in her Armenian Weekly article that "most families in
    the camp reported that they were receiving about $3,000-$5,000
    compensation from the municipality."

    "The municipality was paying more than the value of the current
    homes," Kokoghlanian said.

    He added that he believes it is only a matter of time until the
    municipality and the enduring residents reach an agreement.

    Kokoghlanian said the construction of St. Jacques Plaza is an
    "improvement that will help Burj Hammoud evolve and continue to
    thrive."

    The suburb, which is two square kilometers in size, is one of the most
    densely populated areas in the Middle East, say several Web sites; and
    the city block that Sanjak occupies is precious space.

    The Armenian diaspora in Lebanon has made no significant attempt to
    prevent the camp's destruction. In reaction to their posture,
    Semerdjian asked if the community "will continue to ignore the social
    and economic factors that have contributed to the persistence of this
    Armenian refugee camp for over 60 years?"

    From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress
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