After being forcibly displaced from Artsakh, 35-year-old Knar Sahakyan and her 11-year-old daughter live in a garage. The monthly rent for a cold, damp and cramped garage is AMD 50,000. There are one and a half rooms without utilities. The owner of the “house” demanded two months’ rent from Knar. Knar had to give them the total support of 100 thousand drams received by the RA government for her and her daughter, after which she and her daughter were left without money for bread.
“We live in bad conditions. That day I received 100,000 drams, paid the house rent, and came home empty handed,” said the displaced woman in a conversation with Forrights.am.
The garage is heated with electricity, which is quite expensive and inefficient.
“I can’t pay the electricity bill, so we didn’t have electricity for several days, it was very cold, we couldn’t stay at home. Now she is waiting for the state to provide support again next month, so that she can cover the electricity costs of the previous month and this month.
There is no bathroom in the residence where mother and daughter live. “There is no bathroom, we go to someone else’s house once a week to bathe,” she said.
Knar and her daughter live in Vayk. They have a problem with food, sometimes the municipality provides support, neighbors give clothes. There are days when there is no bread at home.
“I will bake bread at home if we had an oven. Now we don’t have bread at home. I tried to bake it in a pan. I get the same bread as in Artsakh during the blockade. If I get an oven, I would bake bread, but now I have no bread at home and I have no money to buy it. The child wants sweets or clothes, there are old clothes, she doesn’t have normal clothes to wear, to go to school,” says Knar Sahakyan with Forrights.am and shows the bread baked in a pan.
Knar tried to find a job in Vayk, but failed. She says that she is ready to do any work, as long as she can solve the problems of her only child. “I want to find a job, to work. I applied to several places, but there is none. I will do any job.”
Knar says that she is unable to receive benefits as a single mother, because, according to her, her ex-husband refuses to provide a copy of the passport to carry out the benefit transaction.
Knarn is from Dahrav village of Askeran region. She worked as a school janitor. “It was OK, we got along, we resisted the blockade. Now I pay the house rent, I pay the electricity bill, and I have no money left,” she says and remembers September 19, when she was forced to leave his home.
When the shootings stopped, Knar walked with her minor daughter from Dahrav village to her sister’s house in Hasanabad village. “There was no car, we reached my sister’s house on foot, we walked for several hours, we stayed there for several days, when we had to leave, we walked back to our village, took some clothes, walked back to my sister’s house, there was a car, with which we came to Vayk. We came hungry and thirsty all the way, and it was cold.”
Knar and his daughter hope that a miracle will happen for them on the eve of the New Year.
Narek Kirakosyan