Late in the evening of April 4, one of the 27 citizens traveling from Goris to Stepanakert, which had remained in blockade in the corridor of Lachin for five hours, and then had to reach Stepanakaret in an Azerbaijani car, presents details of the incident. “We were accompanied by the Russians. They [the Azeris] stopped us, checked us. We stayed in the car, and then they came and said that we were going back to Goris, but we waited for five hours,” said Armine Abrahamyan.
Armine Abrahamyan is one of the three citizens who fainted from the psychological pressure of the Azerbaijanis.
“When I woke up, the Turks [means Azeris] were already near us; an ambulance had arrived, they measured our blood pressure, gave us medicine, but we did not take the medicine they gave us, they brought us to Stepanakert in their ambulance,” she said.
Armine Abrahamyan came to Armenia to visit her son’s grave in the Yerablur military cemetery and for several months she could not return to Artsakh. In the Lachin Corridor, the Azerbaijanis forbade the Russian peacekeepers to take the women feeling unwell to Stepanakert, demanding to take them to Shushi [which is entirely under Azerbaijani control], but when the citizens objected, the Azerbaijanis agreed to take them to Stepanakert, but only in Azerbaijani ambulance.
“We found out that they had to take us to Shushi, I fell into hysteria, I shouted, I said, we are not going to any Shushi, then they said, if you don’t want it, we will take you to Stepanakert. I am a war victim’s mother, so if they knew about it, what would would they do with me in Shushi? That was all I could think about,” she said.
Mrs. Armine told that the Azerbaijani doctor, who tried to give her first aid, at the same time made hints about reaching of Azeris to Gyumri. “I didn’t even answer: I was dying of fear,” she said.
To remind, on April 4, 27 citizens of the Republic of Artsakh, among whom were women, elderly people and children, after living away from their families for 115 days, left Goris for Stepanakert accompanied by Russian peacekeepers in order to reunite with their families, but did not succeed. Fake eco-activists presented a precondition: if they wanted the opportunity to enter Stepanakert, they should accept Azerbaijani citizenship. Artak Beglaryan, adviser to the State Minister of Artsakh, has alerted about this.
“The Azerbaijanis terrorized the people in the cars, breaking into one of the cars and making threats. Preconditions for entering Artsakh were put forward — to accept Azerbaijani citizenship”, wrote Beglaryan.
During today’s meeting of the Government of Armenia, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan described what happened in the corridor of Lachin yesterday as nothing more than an “outrageous incident”.
“Another outrageous incident took place when a group of residents of Nagorno Karabakh, who were on their way from Goris to Stepanakert, were again not allowed to return to their homes,” he said.
Apart from Pashinyan’s assessment of the intimidation of the people of Artsakh and the coercion to accept the citizenship of Azerbaijan, the official Yerevan did not condemn the actions of Azerbaijanies in any way. The foreign affairs department headed by Ararat Mirzoyan has been silent for three days now, and the spokesperson of the structure does not answer any phone calls.
Narek Kirakosyan