The RA government has not yet provided a solution to the social problems of citizens displaced from Artsakh before September 2023. They do not receive any support. Inesa Hovhannisyan, displaced from Artsakh, alerted the editors of Forrights.am, noting that the large family was in a difficult social situation.
Inesa and her husband have three minor children in the family. They now live in Chambarak city of Armenia. They face the problem of paying rent. “I have a higher education, but I said I am ready to work in a store, but they don’t offer me a job. I haven’t paid the house rent and utilities for three months. I have minor children, I buy milk from the store every day,” says Inessa and notes that they have already accumulated a debt of 100,000 drams in one of the stores.
The family settled in Gandzak village of Kashatagh region og NK under the resettlement program and lived until the 44-Day War of 2020. Inesa taught biology at the village school. When Kashatagh came under the control of Azerbaijan, they moved to Kolkhozashen village of Martunu region.
“We left Artsakh 15 days before the blockade, because my husband had to undergo an operation. We could not return after the operation because the road was already closed: we could not go back. I thought that the road will be opened, it will be fixed, we will go back, but then the rest [of the NK population] came out,” she says and adds:
“My husband is a participant in the war, his leg is injured. One of the children goes to kindergarten in Chambarak, one is three years old, and the youngest is three months old,” says the mother.
The municipality of Chambarak sometimes provides food assistance to the family. “If they don’t give even that, you might come and see that we passed out of starvation.”
The only income of the family is AMD 50,000 for the third child born in the RA. “We pay five thousand to one of the debts, ten thousand to the other, and try to get along. I tell Social Security: you don’t give good support, at least help me find a job, but they refuse that too. My husband, in his injured state, went and asked for a job as a laborer, but they didn’t give him that either,” she says.
According to Inessa, after the displacement, the government of Armenia allocated 300 thousand drams once, then 68 thousand drams for four months and rents, which, according to Inessa, last time they received in September 2023.
Despite Inessa’s requests to receive support, the Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs told Forrights.am that the family is not included in the 2020 or 2023 lists of displaced persons. “At the moment, the ministry is discussing an alternative solution in such cases,” the department says, without specifying when the problem will be solved.
Until then, Forrights.am expects the support of kind-hearted persons and benefactors to help the family.
Narek Kirakosyan
Narek Kirakosyan
Narek Kirakosyan is a journalist, works on the principle of "a person is an absolute value".