Naira Babayan, mother of twice displaced five children, was born in the village of Patara, NK. Together with her husband Gurgen, they lived in the city of Mingechaur, but in 1988, as a result of the Sumgait pogroms, they were moved to Artsakh with their three young children. They witnessed the terrible crimes committed by the Azerbaijanis and after overcoming many difficulties, they returned to their birthplace empty-handed. In Artsakh, they started to settle again; they built a house with their earnings and lived happily.
“My husband participated in the Artsakh liberation war in the 1990s and, thank God, he survived, but unfortunately, my brother and the husbands of my three sisters were killed. Thanks to them and thousands of our other martyrs, we lived peacefully in Artsakh for 35 years. During that time, our other two children were born. When my daughter was born on October 1, 1988, my husband made a surprise, naming her Artsakhuhi [a girl or woman from Artsakh]. Of course, we suffered a lot of difficulties and tribulations, but we lived in our land and that gave us strength to face the problems. But in 2020, as a result of the 44-Day War, we lost an entire young generation and our homeland, and we did not even imagine that the most terrible thing is still ahead of us. Even in the hard days of the blockade, we did not expect the depopulation of Artsakh,” the 62-year-old woman presented bitterly.
Our interlocutor’s children are married, she has 13 grandchildren. Together with the boys, three families lived together under one roof. They had all the amenities in their own home. Ms. Naira worked at “Karabakh Telecom” and did not miss work even during the most difficult days of the year-long blockade. In his spare time, she cultivated her garden, picked blackberries and other berries from the fields, especially during the siege, when she even got salt from the soil so that the family could endure the difficulties.
“I spent the night of September 18-19, 2023 in the bread line, and in the morning, I was at work. I had a kind of bad premonition, I was anxious. I called my son; he was unavailable, there was no contact in the positions. I contacted my daughters-in-law and urged them to pick up the children from school. And in the afternoon, the sky seemed to explode, the city went black, and the sounds of air-raid sirens mingled with the rumble of missiles. It was chaos, the beginning of deprivation of our motherland. I ran home like a madman. People could not keep me to stay in the shelter. I tried to contact my family by phone, but it didn’t work. Then I found out that my son was surrounded,” our interlocutor said.
One of Mrs. Naira’s soldier sons was under siege and only on September 25 it was possible for him and other soldiers to return to their families. Then people had to find fuel. According to Mrs. Naira, on that fateful day she witnessed the terrible consequences of the explosion of the fuel warehouse. She ran to the Republican Medical Center to help the injured.
“I saw naked and burning people running, whom I could not help in any way. It was a terrible and indescribable tragedy. In the midst of that commotion, a man from Martekert approached us and asked for help, because the car’s tires were damaged and he could not evacuate his family. We also removed the wheels of one of our cars, in which we had already placed our things, and gave it to him. Then, we had to leave our car, but whatever, the important thing is that people were saved. We started to dislocate. It was hard to leave our two dogs, who seemed to sense the situation, hugged me and wouldn’t let to go. And my son was clinging to the wall of the house and didn’t want to come out: he was hugging the wall tightly, recalling every stone that he had laid with his hands,” the long-suffering woman told in tears.
They were displaced on September 26. They settled in their three cars with 13 grandchildren, two of whom were newborns, and in-laws. Mostly they were able to take children’s clothes hoping that they will return soon. They reached Hakari bridge with great difficulty. One of the newborns had a fever on the way.
“Already in Goris, they welcomed us warmly, providing us with basic food and medicine. I wanted to scream and scream from the pain. A random stranger in Goris offered to spend the night at their house, for which I am extremely grateful to him and other sympathizers. 25 of us stayed in a one-room apartment of a relative in Yerevan for a week. Now 12 of us live in a 3-room apartment rented for AMD 250,000 in Ajapnyak, Yerevan [capital of Armenia].
Artsakh was our main aorta, from which we were nourished. Artsakh is the color of the eyes of every Artsakh citizen, the heartbeat, the most precious legacy left by our great-grandfathers. Blind and dumb world, how do you allow the rights of the first Christian nation to be thus violated? In the 21st century, an Artsakh citizen was sacrificed and became countryless, homeless, addressless, and this is genocide. The RA government has become Aliyev’s super powerful weapon. The Armenian nation must come to its senses and the issue of returning to our historical homeland should be raised. My priority task at present is our return,” emphasized Naira Babayan.
Zara Mayilyan