Abkhazia may be an unlikely home for Syrian refugees in the South Caucasus, but since war broke out, this small de-facto state on the Black Sea, considered by most states to be Georgian territory, has welcomed a few hundred refugees fleeing the conflict.
The Abkhazian authorities’ decision to accept these refugees was not one made at random. Abkhazia’s Syrian refugees are descendants of the Mukhadjirs—ethnic Abkhaz and the closely related Circassian people who were expelled from their ancestral homelands in the north-west Caucasus following the Russian Empire’s conquest of the region in the wars of the nineteenth century. Former parliament building in Sukhumi, shelled during the War in Abkhazia (1992-93). Abkhazia remains largely unrecognised, and is dependent on Russia for economic and political support. Photo (c): Darko Duridanski / Demotix, 2008.Although the majority of them are indeed refugees by any definition of the word, in Abkhazia itself they are referred to as ‘repatriates’. This is connected with the fact that Syrian refugees—500 of whom arrived in Abkhazia following the outbreak of war—migrated here under the auspices of the de-facto government’s repatriation programme, which has operated in Abkhazia since 1993.
Tilting the balance
There are no precise figures for the number of ethnic Abkhaz, and closely related Abazins, in Syria. Ethnic Abkhaz arrived in Syria in 1967, in the aftermath of the Six Day War. Following Israel’s occupation of the Golan Heights, Abkhaz and Circassians, who were living in the settlement of Hassaniya, fled the region to the safety of Damascus and its suburbs.
