On the day the war began, on the morning of September 19, the staff of the orphanage sent the children to school as usual, and, around 1:00 PM, the sky rumbled with the loud sounds of the enemy’s military operations. “We were all in shock. My first call was to our driver to come and take our students to the shelter of the 9th school by car. The driver said that there was neither car nor fuel. Since our institution also cared for younger children, the youngest of which was 8 months old, we had to do something immediately. Under incessant gunfire, we urgently took the confused and terrified children in the private car of one of our drivers to the shelter of the 9th school, we tried to calm the children, because they were in a terrible psychological state,” the acting director of the boarding school shared with excitement about their feelings in the first hours of the war.
Then Zoya Harutyunyan and another employee of the orphanage, Karine, tried to find food and beds for the children under the bombings. During that time, as our interlocutor tells, she had no opportunity to call her family members: there was no communication line, nor the opportunity to visit home. According to her, one of the guards lived near the boarding house, she asked him to come and help to carry the children’s beds and other necessary items to the shelter. Since the orphanage was close to the Krkzhan district, which was immediately targeted by enemy military operations from Shushi, the local population was at the center of the war.
“With the guard and our shift workers, we somehow managed under shells, rockets, bombs, and explosions to organize all of that and bring the stuff to the basement of the school. Since the school shelter was the only one in that district of the capital, so many people were sheltered there that there was not even a place to sit. Some of the people stood, others sat one by one, and so on all night. At the same time, there was an atmosphere of fear and uncertainty. Some were crying, some were screaming, others were told the news of their son’s death… In those circumstances, we calmed down the terrified children as much as possible, accommodated them, and fed them. As soon as it dawned on September 20, I ran to our house to see my family members, then we moved to the shelter together,” says our interlocutor.
Returning to the shelter, they were surprised. “The building was surrounded by masked soldiers of special forces, and the residents had left the area. My family members and our children from the orphanage stayed in the shelter. The militants said that the Azerbaijani soldiers were already in the outskirts of Stepanakert. It was necessary to leave the shelter urgently and go to the Ivanyan airport to the Russian peacekeepers. Our kindergarten students were very scared, shocked and stressed. “We immediately put the children in my husband’s and daughter’s cars to go to the airport,” our interlocutor said.
There were people who assured that there would be a ceasefire at 12:00 and there was no need to go to the airport. Some of the children from the orphanage were transported from the airport with great difficulty to Stepanakert and sheltered in the basement of the hospital. They moved there and, after the news of the ceasefire is confirmed, the Minister of Territorial Administration and Infrastructure of the Republic of Azerbaijan sent a “Gazelle” car to bring the children from the basement of the hospital to the facility. However, Azerbaijani snipers positioned in the surrounding hills could already be seen from the territory of the facility.
“At that moment, God gave us heavenly strength not to be afraid, because the orphan children were looking into our eyes. We were under direct fire of the enemy. Some of our employees kept the children in a somewhat safe part of the building, and with the others we cooked food on the stove so that the children would not go hungry. We spent that night sitting up, almost not sleeping, but we managed to bake bread. Shots were heard while giving breakfast to the children in the morning: it turned out that battles were going on in the district of Krkzhan. Under the gunshots, we put the children in the cars to leave, and I, under the screams of the frightened children asking me not to go, ran back to take the bread baked during the night. Holding the bread, we all got into cars and headed to the municipality. Everywhere was a mess. Our employees remained standing in front of the municipality with small children in their arms, and I was trying to find the people in charge of state institutions to solve the problem of children’s accommodation,” Zoya tells with tears in her eyes.
After some time, the children were moved to a basement room of the municipality. In that chaotic state, it was also necessary to take important documents from the Boarding House.
“It was already getting dark. the Azerbaijanis were in the territory of Krkzhan. Without informing my family, Hayk and our housekeeper Karine carefully approached our institution by car. I took the light of the phone away from the young man because the snipers were watching. I told him that he was young; if something happens, let it happen to me,” Mrs. Zoya told me in tears. Under the direct aim of the Azerbaijani armed forces, at the cost of their lives, they managed to take the relevant documents and the golden crosses of children’s baptism.
In those days of the war, finding and preparing food for the children was a problem, especially in the absence of gas and electricity. As my interlocutor informed, the baby food of the youngest, 8-month-old child, they had to prepare with raw frozen water.
Zara Mayilyan