A ceasefire was announced in Artsakh on September 21, two days after the Azerbaijani military operations. The children and women sheltered in the basements came out, trying to return to everyday life. Nurse Lusine was one of them. She had decided to go to work that day. Around noon, she walked from home to the Stepanakert Republican Hospital. The 39-year-old woman worked as a laboratory nurse. In one of the streets of Stepanakert, Lusine was injured by an Azerbaijani sniper shot during a ceasefire.
“On the morning of September 21st, I decided to go to work; my colleagues needed help. I left the house at 11 o’clock. I was walking to the hospital as there was no transportation. I went 100 meters, shooting started. I stopped for a moment; I didn’t know what to do. At that moment, something hit me, I put my hand to my waist, it was all blood,” Lusine Mesropyan told Forrights.am.
An enemy sniper targeted Lusine from the Stepanakert suburbs.
“I didn’t see them. I was afraid, I thought they were right behind me. People came, helped me, took me to the hospital. The examination revealed that there was a bullet in my body. They said the bullet they took out of my body was a sniper’s bullet. It got into my gut. I did not think that, when there is a ceasefire, the enemy could enter the city. They were shooting from Krkzhan, the upper district of Stepanakert,” she says.
Those days were hard for Lusine. Before she was injured, she went through many dangers together with her family. “We did not leave the basement until the morning of the 20th of the month: the shooting did not stop even for a minute. Very loud sounds could be heard and very close to us. We left on the 20th of the month and went to the Ivanyan airport. We stood there for several hours, then the Russians said, ‘Everything is fine, go to your homes’.” Lusine remembers how they spent days in the basement without anything to eat.
” The shots…the snipers…the kids… We were in a bad situation… it’s inexplicable.”
Lusine was injured and operated on in Stepanakert, but the post-operative phase did not pass as prescribed: she had to leave the treatment halfway and was forcibly displaced from Artsakh. She changed the bandage for the last time in Stepanakert hospital and started her journey leaving NK.
“I was drinking painkillers all the way to be able to endure,” she says and notes that she stayed in the car for a day as it could not move forward because of the traffic jam.
“The car was standing still for a day: we couldn’t move forward. One day had passed, they saw that I was injured, they gave way, we passed. We arrived at the Russian post. They didn’t believe that I was wounded, they said show me the documents. I had taken the medical history sheet with me. They checked it out and then let us pass. Then we came to the enemy post, they checked there too and only after that we arrived in Armenia.”
Lusine has recovered and is now working in one of Yerevan’s clinics.
Narek Kirakosyan