“I didn’t sleep well that night, my eyes closed for a moment. I saw my father in my dream. He was telling me to be calm, everything is fine, but one of us won’t return. Then I woke up from strong explosions. The positions could be seen near us. I thought that those sounds were either from my husband’s or my father’s positions,” Lilit recalls in a conversation with Forrights.am, talking about September 19.
He is 20 years old. His father, Vitaly Abaghyan, served in the Artsakh army for almost his age, 18 years. Lilit’s husband returned, but her father did not: he died about half an hour before the ceasefire on September 20, in the area called Lusnyak.
The Abaghyans lived in the town of Chartar. Years ago, they moved from the village of Hin Tagher in Hadrut. Contract soldier Vitaly Abaghyan was hardly seen in the family: he was always in positions, next to the soldiers. On September 19, he came home for a few minutes to take food.
Lilit spoke with her father on the phone for the last time on September 19, before the start of hostilities, but when he came home for a few minutes, she did not see him. “Neither I nor my brothers got to see him. After that we could not talk. We learned that there was a strong fight in his position, my father was killed along with his friend Samvel,” said his daughter.
Vitali was 42 years old. For last 18 years, he was constantly staying in the positions.
After Vitali went to positions last time, the woman spoke to her husband only once. “He said: take the children and go to the basement, and after that there was no call. We stayed in the basement all night.”
Mrs. Nune was told about her husband’s injury by a soldier who came to take food. “There was a gazelle in Chartar’s bakery. We obtained about five liters of gasoline, filled it up and went to the Martuni hospital. When I went, I saw that my husband was dead. They fought until the end. But many of them hid. I looked at them and said, Who should go and fight for your families and children?”
“The last farewell and burial of Vitali Abaghyan from the village of Chartar in Martuni region of NK took place in the same way as the burial of other boys who died in Chartar in those days: at night, silently, so that the enemy would not notice the gatherings and hit them with UAVs. “We didn’t even bring my husband home: we brought him at night and buried at once. They didn’t let us bring them during the day; they were afraid that they [the Azerbaijanis] would shoot,” said his wife, Lilit.
The family that lost their father now is in difficult social conditions. They live in Sevan, Armenia on rent, they are only able to pay the rent with the support of the state.
“We came and there was no place to stay. We stopped the cars and slept in the car for two nights, then we rented a house in Sevan. Now we can barely afford the rent. I don’t have a job, I also have health problems, I don’t know how to work to pay rent, utility bills. We do not have anything: only the support of the state, which is not enough. My son does not go to school, he wants to work so that we can live,” says Mrs. Nune.
Narek Kirakosyan