Answering The Humanitarian Call

"We are committed to resettling 1,300 Syrians by the end of 2014, with 1,100 spaces allocated for privately sponsored refugees."
"We have begun to resettle the most vulnerable, and are actively working with the UNHCR so we can fulfill our existing commitments and then look at doing even more."
"We are processing more than 2,000 applications and claims for asylum from Syrian nationals."
Alexis Pavlich, spokeswoman for Immigration Minister Chris Alexander, Ottawa

Thousands of people have fled Syria

The United Nations called on the international community to aid in resettling 100,000 of the 2.4-million Syrians forced to flee their country, becoming refugees as a result of the brutal civil war and their own government's violent assaults upon civilian enclaves holding Syrian Sunni majority populations.

Last year the United Nations asked member-countries to take in 30,000 Syrian refugees to relieve the pressure on Middle East countries adjacent Syria, forced to welcome those fleeing the atrocities that both the regime of Bashar al-Assad and the Free Syrian Army, infiltrated by Islamists, have committed against hapless civilians caught squarely between two brutalities.

Canada had promised to take in 1,300 Syrian refugees living in UN camps with another 1,100 sponsored privately by Canadian citizens or other groups engaged in a humanitarian pledge to relieve their plight. Those numbers place Canada among the top five countries having made similar pledges of accepting displaced Syrians.

The Conservative-led government is under pressure from political opposition parties to increase the numbers of Syrians from the current total to two or three times that number. UN High Commissioner for Refugees Antonio Guterres, who has previously praised Canada's commitment, is visiting Canada to meet with Minister Alexander and other Canadian officials.

Jordan, Lebanon and Iraq as well as Turkey appear to be strained to their limits in accepting the hundreds of thousands of Syrians that have streamed out of their war-torn country. The further millions forced to migrate away from areas of high conflict, yet remaining in Syria, face a plight no less dire than their counterparts who have left the country for haven elsewhere.

When Canada speaks of accepting those most in need of being spirited out of the country, Syrian Christians come instantly to mind. They have enjoyed a relatively reliable stability with the Alawite regime, though their numbers, as reflected elsewhere in the Middle East, have diminished thanks to Muslim antipathy toward other religions in their midst.

With the looming threat of Islamists eventually controlling significant portions of Syria, the plight of Syrian Christians becomes more evident.