Kamo Balayan was beaten by the Azeri military on the way to his forced deportation from Artsakh to Armenia. Three people abused him. Mr. Balayan from Artsakh told about this in a conversation with Forrights.am, noting that the incident happened on the highway from Chartar to Stepanakert, where the Azerbaijani side installed two checkpoints after September 19.
Kamo Balayan describes terrible episodes from the actions of Azerbaijani armed servicemen: how they abused him, threw him on the ground and kicked him for five minutes.
“Someone in black clothes kicked me in the back. I was at the door and when he kicked me I hit the door with my chest. After that, they hit me several times with their weapons. They hit me and told to empty the contents of the car. During all that emptying, they beatme: three people beat at the same time. When I fell to the ground. The three men started kicking me. They hit my neck, they hit my back, they hit my kidneys”, the man told Forrights.am and stated that they started hitting him severely after he suggested that they speak Russian or Armenian with him because he does not understand Azerbaijani.
“One person was speaking Russian. I understood that two of them were cursing in Azerbaijani. I said in Russian to either speak in Armenian or in Russian. First time, they hit me when I said that,” Kamo recalls. He says that there were no Russian peacekeepers in the area, who were considered to be responsible for the safety of the people of Artsakh. “There were no Russians.”
Kamo believes that he was beaten also for participating in the defensive battles for Artsakh. He was from the militia, he received many medals for his services to the motherland. When leaving Chartar, they took the medals given to him and his father and put them in the car.
“I kept the medals – mine, my father’s – in the door pocket of the car. I forgot that I put them there where they were visible. Those medals were taken and they were cursing,” Kamo saw the scenes of how the Azerbaijanis threw the medals onto the ground and began to trample them.
The beatings and psychological pressures were taking place in front of the eyes of the Artsakh residents leaving Chartar. “The procession of deportees was standing, but how could they interfere? You cannot interfere. Snipers were sitting on all four sides; it was clear that they could shoot at any moment or tie my hands and take me away.”
There was another Azerbaijani checkpoint four kilometers away from that checkpoint, where Kamo was not subjected to physical violence, but there was psychological pressure. They restricted the movement of him and three other Artsakh citizens in the car for about half an hour not allowing them to continue the journey.
Kamo Balayan has severe pains in his head, back, and kidneys. He says, he barely reached Stepanakert; he couldn’t drive the car from there for two days. Even now, in this condition, he is taking care of a family of seven people. Sitting idle is not for him, he says, he is looking for a job.
“How should I go to a doctor? We were looking for a place to stay for several days: how could I go to a doctor? We slept in the car for several days until we got this house. One day we slept in Goris, one day in Vayk, one day in Ararart,” says Kamo, who has now temporarily settled in Garni with his family. The landlord gave the house for three months; they have to look for a new house in the middle of the cold winter.
Before the atrocities of the migration road, Kamo Balayan participated in the war that started on September 19. “It was cruel, very severe” he says.
Kamo and his family have a number of social problems. They could not bring anything from Artsakh. They have not yet received the financial support that the RA government is supposed to provide. Kamo Balayan considers this secondary. He says that sooner or later he will get the money and find a job, but the irreparable losses will not be recovered.
“We left everything in Chartar, most importantly we left our homeland, homeland! Our cemeteries, houses… our homeland…”
Narek Kirakosyan
Narek Kirakosyan
Narek Kirakosyan is a journalist, works on the principle of "a person is an absolute value".