Fed: Families relieved young dancers are safe
Australian Associated Press Pty. Ltd.
AAP Newsfeed
July 18, 2006 Tuesday 8:28 AM AEST
MELBOURNE July 18
The families of Australian children with an Armenian dance troupe on
tour in the Middle East say they are relieved their loved ones are
among 86 Australians rescued from war-torn Lebanon.
The Sevan Dance Group’s 45 young performers and 36 parents and
supervisors were this morning safe in the Jordan, the federal
government said. The government had organised three buses to pick
up the group and some others from their Beirut hotel. The convoy
headed north along the Mediterranean coast road early last night
(AEST) and crossing the Syrian border to the capital, Damascus.
Parliamentary secretary for Foreign Affairs Teresa Gambaro said
today the group had now arrived in the Jordanian capital Amman.
Silva Vartabebian, whose 18-year-old daughter is part of the dance
troupe, said she had yet to speak to her daughter, but was relieved.
"Very relieved, very relieved," she told the Seven Network. "It’s a
bad experience, I’m sure it was worse for them. Very anxious waiting
at home. No sleeping, just constantly worrying, talking to parents
all the time, asking if they’d heard anything. "Nothing crossed our
minds that something like this would happen, to this extent anyway."
She said her daughter originally wasn’t going to go, but a job she had
fell through and there was a last-minute cancellation in the troupe.
Ms Vartabebian said Australian foreign affairs officials had gone to
the Armenian Cultural Centre to reassure parents and update them on
what was taking place. She said she was not sure when they would be
coming home. Tatiana Arabian, whose 15-year-old son and 16-year-old
daughter were also on the tour, said it had been a tense wait.
She said she would not relax until she knew her children were to
catch a flight home. "Since Thursday 2pm it’s been terrible and
… now I can finally say that they are safe, but still I can feel I
might even receive a phone call saying it’s not going as positive as
you are think, so fingers crossed that they will be home as soon as
they reach Jordan," she told Channel Nine. "Last time I talked to
them, they were in Beirut, in the hotel, they were in a safe place.
"That was two days ago. "My son was quite all right but my daughter,
who is 16, and she was a bit scared because she could hear the bombs
and she said:`The building is shaking, and Mum it’s really scary.
"I said: `You have to hang on there until the embassy will try and
get you all out’." Ms Arabian said she expected her children home
tomorrow morning.
From: Baghdasarian