Conscript Ashot Khomov-Sargsyan was a talented sniper. On September 22, he participated in a competition and won, for which he was granted a ten-day vacation. Due to Covid-19, however, the holiday was cancelled. If it had not been cancelled, he would have been at home, not on the front lines, when the war started.
“If he was here, on vacation, I wouldn’t let him go. Even if he was a deserter, he would be alive,” says Ashot’s mother, Lusik Sargsyan. According to her, when the war had just started, she was very calm, she was sure that nothing could happen to her son.
“I read the news of the war in the morning. It was time for him to call, but he didn’t. I read the news and was shocked. He didn’t call for four days. I was already going crazy. I thought to go to Artsakh. Then they started saying that We Will Win, and I believed like everyone else. I was fooled by the news. Then, when he called, I screamed with joy and fell to the ground, Ashot said, “What have you lost?” He was very quiet. I said, come home. He said ‘What are you saying?’… He told me that he was in the bunker…”, says the mother.
She later learned that Ashot was promoted to lieutenant during the war because he shot down an unmanned aerial vehicle on the second day.
Ashot Khomov-Sargsyan died on October 23. According to the mother, he called her just an hour before the incident. “That day he called to say that he will not come. But couldn’t tell me. I was happy that he called… I felt that he wanted to say something, but couldn’t. I said: if you can’t tell me, call your brother… the brother called and said: “You take good care of mom: I won’t come… there is no way to come.”
It is known that Ashot was in Karmir Shuka, where three people were engaged in checking bases. “The commander said you should check, even though you know that you will die’. Two hundred people were under siege. My son was shot by a sniper. Three people were hit, two hundred people were able to get out… there are parents who say to me: “Lus, you are lucky that you got him with his face open: we got a bone.” We, the mothers, console ourselves with the fact that one’s face was open, one’s was closed, one’s was there or was not… do you understand? This is how we comfort each other. This is our status, what can we do?…” says the mother of the fallen soldier.
Mrs. Lusik shows Ashot’s aquarium and the goldfish in it. “This is my Ashot’s goldfish. Every day I ask him to bring my son back by some miracle… We were all deceived by “We Will Win”.
Ani Gevorgyan