42-year-old Lali Aydoeva, a Yezidi by nationality, lost her only son, Davit, and earlier, her husband, in the 44-day war. The young woman now lives alone in a rented apartment in Yerevan.
“I’m suffocating, I go back and forth in the house, I kiss and hug my child’s pictures, I talk and constantly ask, why did you leave me alone, son?” says Mrs. Lali.
In January 2019, the son of a single mother was directly taken to Nagorno Karabakh, Jrakan. Se says that she was powerless in reminnding the defense system of the requirement of the legislation: the child of a single mother can be drafted into the army only at a distance of 50 km from his home. The mother did not put up a fight, the son was taken to Artsakh. “They just took him away. As they were taking my child away, the general said, “You are a young girl, you are a working person, let your son go to serve,” Lali remembers. Nevertheless, Davit, who was conscripted into the army, liked the service very much and was satisfied with the conditions. But all that did not last long.
Mrs. Lali tearfully remembers the nightmarish days of autumn 2020. On September 27 [the day when the 44-Day War started], she called her son and was surprised by his calm voice. He said, “Mom, I’m fine, why are you calling so much?” I ask: how are you, what are you doing, what is the situation, is there a war? He says: we are fine; what war? I heard the sound of the shots, but he didn’t say that they were bad, he only said: we are here so that you all can rest your head on the pillow and sleep.”
Davit called his mother and reassured her every day until October 3. Then Lali did not contact his son and on October 5 she learned about her son’s death. “The last time we talked, he said, ‘I am so tired, isn’t there going to be a ceasefire?’ I said, ‘I don’t know’, and he told me, ‘You have to take very good care of yourself’,” the mother recalls from the last phone conversation. The friends told the mother that Davit did everything to keep the Idoev Hill in Jrakan named after him, but the enemy’s forces were incomparably more.
One of the officers hid David’s body from the enemy under the soil, and, for this reason, in January 2021, the mother received the complete body of her son.
After the death of her son, a chain of mishaps accompanied the young woman. first during the war, then after receiving the news of her son’s death, the landlord of the house persistently and gradually raised the rent of the apartment, then, in order to search for her son’s body, she took loans and fell into debt, and after some time, a major car accident and its serious consequences did not give the woman a break. As a result of the accident, Lali suffered a spinal fracture and underwent several serious operations. She says that the spine is assembled with implants, the doctors advised her not to do heavy work. As a result, she became a 2nd degree disabled person at a young age.
In order to get rid of the heavy debt burden, she applied to the court and was declared bankrupt, in order to get rid of the conscienceless landlord, she packed her stuff and moved to a new apartment. The most painful thing, she says, is constantly moving David’s corner. Now the photos of her son at different ages are carefully arranged on the black piano in the new apartment. “The previous landlord was very ruthless. When the war started, he raised the rent. Then when I was looking for my son’s body, he raised it again and did so also after the accident: he increased the price from 70 thousand to 150 thousand [Armenian drams]. I got upset, said that he has no conscience and left. It was terrible to constantly move David’s corner. It is very difficult for me that I take his pictures, collect them in a box, then take them out again, sort them,” Lali cries.
After her son’s death, Lali spent 10 million drams from the Military Servicemen’s Insurance Fund to build a decent tombstone for her son, and the 200,000 drams allocated every month is for house rent. Her disability pension of 35,000 drams is her living allowance. She has taken manicure courses. she says that she likes this craft very much, but cannot afford to buy equipment for it: she does not have the necessary amount of 300,000 drams. “If I had, I would at least do the work at home,” says the woman.
She heard from acquaintances that apartments are allocated to the families of the fallen servicemen. She applied to Yerevan Municipality, received a rejection letter from the former mayor Hrachya Sargsyan: she does not have Yerevan registration. She applied to the place of registration, Aragatsotn regional administration, but they replied that they do not have such a program.
“Why so? Did my son die just for Aragatsotn region? Davit dreamed of having a house; I always told him that we will definitely have one. They argue with me, saying why did I spend so much money for the grave. But how could I not spend it? Now, it [the grave] is his house where I go to visit him. The state could at least help me with a small cabin, providing a small space for me to live in… If I had kept my child’s money, I would have my own house,” she says. They even appealed to Rustam Bakoyan, the representative of the minority in the ruling faction of the Parliament, but there was no response.
Deep grief and bad social conditions did not even deter the young woman from thinking of becoming a mother again. She says that she once applied to the artificial insemination program, but the outcome was unsuccessful. She is going to try again. “My nationality does not look at it well, but I will apply again.”
P.S. Journalists for Human Rights NGO / www.forrights.am represents representatives of Armenian national minorities who participated in the war and heroically died for the motherland.
Hasmik Hambardzumyan
