Ishtartv.com- Ankawa
On the graduation of the students of the fourth Armenian language teaching summer program, the Armenian Cultural and Social Association in Ankawa organized a ceremony.
The
ceremony, which was held in the Ur hall of the Chaldean Culture Association in
Ankawa, began with a minute of silence in respect for the souls of the Iraqi
martyrs.
Razmik
Muradian, the president of the Armenian Cultural and Social Association in Ankawa, officials from the education sector in the Kurdistan Region of northern Iraq and
umpteen people from the Armenian community in Ankawa attended the ceremony.
In her speech during the
ceremony, Anna Sarkisian, the head of the program, welcomed the attendees and said that
despite its limited abilities the Armenian Association was capable to present the Armenian culture through various
activities it organized.
During
the ceremony activities were presented by the students of the program.
Hagop Simonian, a member
of the Armenian Association, delivered a speech during which he
referred to the fact the
Armenians lived in the Iraqi cities of Basra, Baghdad, Kirkuk and Mosul since old
times. Because of the conditions that affected the Christians after
2003, many Armenians moved from Baghdad and Iraq's southern provinces to the Kurdistan Region
of northern Iraq and lived in Ankawa, Dohuk and Sulaymaniyah.
At
the end of the ceremony gifts and awards were divided among the teachers and the participants of the program.
It
is noteworthy that Ankawa, a suburb of Arbil, Erbil Governorate in the Kurdistan Region of northern Iraq, has about 40,000 inhabitants, who are
mostly members of the Chaldean Catholic Church. The current security situation
in Ankawa is stable, which has led to an influx of internally displaced people from
other parts of Iraq, where security conditions were worsening after the US-UK
occupation of Iraq in 2003 . 162 Armenian families (800-900 people) resorted to
Ankawa from Baghdad, Mosul and other Iraqi cities. In 2011, an Armenian language
division was opened in the Shlama school in Ankawa.
Translation and extra
information from
Ara S. Ashjian
Yerevan, Armenia
See the pictures of the ceremony:
p--cmYrAD_e345B
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