Not long ago, at a session of the UN General Assembly, Armenia's president Serzh Sargsyan declared that in the past few years Armenia has accepted 16,000 refugees from Syria. In his opinion, this makes Armenia one of Europe's leading countries in number of refugees accepted.
According to UNHCR estimates, Armenia currently hosts some 3,238 officially registered refugees, along with 12,450 'people in a refugee-like situation'—all of them from Syria. This second category refers to the majority of Syrian Armenians who, upon arriving in Armenia, prefer not to apply for refugee status, but instead apply for either Armenian citizenship or a 10-year residence permit. Both of these are rights extended by Armenian law to foreign citizens of Armenian descent.
In contrast to other European countries, the overwhelming majority of Syrian refugees in Armenia are ethnic Armenians. But be that as it may, 15,000 refugees is not an insignificant number for a country with a population of three million and a GDP of $3,500 per capita.
