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Демографические процессы в сирийской христианской общине во второй половине XX – начале XXI вв. Часть II: Сколько христиан было в Сирии в 2024 г.?
This article analyzes demographic change within the Syrian Christian community during the armed conflict. The study draws on field data collected by the author in 2019–2024, including interviews with Syrian Christians and observations made while travelling across the country, alongside Vatican statistics on Eastern Catholic communities and media reports. The findings show that areas of intense terrorist activity, notably Idlib and the trans-Euphrates region, have been almost entirely abandoned by Christians. In most regions, including major urban centers such as Aleppo, Damascus, and Homs, the Christian population declined by threefold or more. Only a limited number of localities, including Mhardeh, Suqaylabiyah, Safita, and villages of Wadi al-Nasara, retained pre-conflict population levels. It is concluded that by the end of 2024 Syria was undergoing de facto de-Christianization: the number of Christians fell to about 450,000, and their share of the population dropped to roughly two percent or less. These changes are primarily explained by mass emigration to Western countries caused by worsening security situation, economic collapse, and political uncertainty. Particularly alarming trends include the rapid decrease of rural Christian communities, the predominance of emigrants of reproductive age, and the nearly complete absence of return migration. It’s argued that, given contemporary Syrian political culture, new Islamist authorities may exploit Christians’ decline in numbers to disregard their political demands. It’s also pointed out that the erosion of the Christian component since the 1960s weakened the social base of Baathist rule and contributed to its inability to respond to challenges in the 2010-2020s.