Azerbaijanis killed three civilians in Sarushen. The incident took place after the September 19 war, on the road from Sarushen to Stepanakert. Mkhitar Gasparyan, a resident of the village, relayed to us in a conversation with Forrights.am.
“My neighbors were killed; I knew them,” said the 64-year-old man, detailing that one of the killed was one of the elderly residents of the village, who was on the way to displacement.
“One of the killed has been wounded, the other was a relative of the wounded, who was taking him to the hospital with his car, and the third was an elderly man who wanted to take his big car to Stepanakert so that he couold help to transport many people to flee to Armenia,” said Mkhitar Gasparyan.
Mikhitar Gasparyan was also in danger of being killed on the same road. He was a participant in the combat operations of September 19. He was not a soldier, but he participated in Sarushen’s self-defense.
“When the enemy attacked, all the villagers entered the fight. The war started like that. We gave a lot of victims; 10 people died,” he said, noting that he was wounded in the leg.
The village head of Sarushen tried to transport Mkhitarin along with two other injured people to Stepanakert hospital with his car. “We left the village on the way to Khachmachi (village in Askeran region of NK). The Azerbaijanis blocked the road, we came under fire. They shot a lot. It looked as if hail was falling on the car. The village head was wounded in the back. We overturned the car and went to Sarushen,” he said, emphasizing that the Azerbaijanis had positioned themselves on that road in order to kill the Artsakh citizens.
Mkhitar Gasparyan participated in the defense of his homeland in the same position where Armen Arustamyan died bravely. Forrights.am published about Armen’s feat last week.
“There were three of us. We were running out of ammunition. Armen sent the third one behind us to go and bring ammunition, but he didn’t bring it and he couldn’t come back. So, they remained only two of us. We shot as much as possible. We were about to run out of ammunition,” he said, noting that, on the one hand, the problem was the lack of ammunition, on the other hand, the trench was not furnished; there were only earth mounds.
The fire on their position stopped for some time, after which Armen noticed: “The Turks entered the trench.” “It was 40 meters away from us. We started shooting, but we were also retreating back, because there were only two of us. We were shooting and, at the same time, we were going back together. When we went about 25 meters. I saw Armen fall”. as we already informed, Mkhitar Gasparyan was also wounded at that time.
He told us that the bullet did not hit the bone because he had a phone in his pocket. “Dragging my leg, I approached him. ‘Armen! Armen!…’ He said: ‘I’m out of breath, take off my vest.’ I took it off and saw a trace of blood on the back… He died in my arms. I was wounded, he was killed; I didn’t know what to do. They were shooting with machine guns, automatic guns, with everything… I somehow came to the village. They didn’t shoot a lot at the village; they shot at the positions to destroy the soldiers and take the villagers captive.
After these incidents, when Mkhitar failed to reach Stepanakert and returned to Sarushen with the village head, he met a woman hiding in the forest. After the start of the war, the people of Sarushents fled to the forest to save themselves. After returning to Sarushen, they managed to take Mkhitar to the hospital by an ambulance, and, after a few days’ stay, he came to Armenia.
“I am thinking about leaving Armenia, but going to Artsakh, not outside,” Mkhitar Gasparyan concludes the interview.
Narek Kirakosyan
Narek Kirakosyan
Narek Kirakosyan is a journalist, works on the principle of "a person is an absolute value".