The people of Artsakh want the opportunity to cry and lay flowers near the graves of their relatives. They have been living with that desire for 10 months. On July 11, they gathered near the RA government building and were expecting a meeting with the Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan to ask him to transfer the bodies of the victims of the September 19, 2023 war to Armenia.
There were crying mothers, wives, gray-haired fathers and young men in the courtyard of the government building: they are united by the absence of their loved ones’ graves.
“We are not protesting, we are asking for the bodies of our dead boys to be tranfered,” says an elderly man. He is Valerik Aghamalyan, the father of the deceased Samvel Aghamalyan.
“My son was killed on September 20 in the positions. If they had told us that we should leave, we would not have buried him,” he says. Samvel’s wife also came to the government building with her husband’s father.
“We are asking them to bring the bodies, hand them over to their relatives to bury them, so that our souls can rest. It is difficult to live like this. My husband died in combat positions. We buried him in Chartar,” she said.
Forrights.am has many publications about the events that took place in Chartar. The residents of Chartar told how they organized funerals after midnight, how they made coffins out of logs, silently so that the enemy would not see and target them during the funeral.
Valerik Aghamalyan says that before turning to the Armenian government, they had discussions on this issue with the Artsakh representation and the International Red Cross, but they did not reach any results. “They even demanded that elder people go to remove them, I agreed, but there is no news [from them],” he says and notes that he does not know if anyone from the RA government will meet with them.
Another victim’s wife told Forrights.am that “the process with the Red Cross was incomplete, the reasons are unknown.”
“My son was killed. He is 24 years old,” says a woman, her words drowning in tears and she cannot continue.
“I spoke with my son 15 minutes before the war. I only spoke with him for two minutes. After that the connection was lost; I have no information,” with tears in her eyes, says another mother who has been missing her son for ten months.
She mother tried to look for him, but did not receive any information. “One of the men serving with him was captured. He came back, I met with him. He said that he was far away from him and did not see him. My son has been gone for ten months. I have written letters ten times asking them [the government] to accept me, but they won’t accept me.”
The relatives of the victims ask Nikol Pashinyan for only one thing: to help transfer the bodies of their loved ones to Armenia, but the Prime Minister of Armenia does not want to listen to them. Pashinyan, who stands out for his speeches about humanity, did not accept the mourners who stood silently near the government for four or five hours. In the reception department of the government, they offered them to write a letter in the name of Pashinyan and leave. The people of Artsakh wrote in the hope that Pashinyan would accept them.
“They should exhume everyone, bring them to Armenia so that they have a normal grave, we have a place to put flowers. My husband died. His brother also died, in 1994. My expectation from the Armenian government is that the Artsakh government has no authority, we are subordinate to the RA government, it should deal with our issues, but it does not accept us, it does not deal with our issues. If you displaced us and filled the streets of Armenia, take care of us. They told us in Artsakh social security office: “Go: before you reach the place, we will bring after you.” But then the fire happened, the victims were so many that it became not possible to bring them out,” said one of the attendees.
On September 19, 2023, as a result of Azerbaijan’s military aggression, more than 200 people died, 181 of them were servicemen.
Narek Kirakosyan