The unlawful taking constituting theft of 173 sheep by Azerbaijani armed forces from the shepherd of Khndzoresk village in the Syunik region on February 11, 2012, confirms what the Republic of Armenia (RA) Human Rights Defender has been cautioning and forewarning about for several months.

The RA Human Rights Defender Arman Tatoyan wrote about this on his Facebook page.

In particular, yesterday the Khndzoresk municipality announced that on February 11, a resident of the village of Khndzoresk in the Syunik region, had grazed a total of 185 small cattle in the pastures near the village. During the grazing, some of the animals approached the area controlled by the Azerbaijani soldiers, after which the Azerbaijani armed forces unlawfully took 173 of the 185 sheep and carried it away with the intent to permanently deprive the shepherd of his personal property, to wit, the sheep.

The animals were returned only after negotiations between the RA Border Troops and the Armed Forces Corps Command.

The referenced information was confirmed to the RA Human Rights Defender by a number of villagers and community bodies. To be clear, the Syunik regional subdivision of the Defender’s Office discovered that the pastor himself, was not negligent in guiding his flock, but rather, was very careful, however, the incident happened because habitually the animals historically are accustomed to grazing in those areas; and, the relevant pastures are such that it is difficult and quite impractical to exercise sufficient control over the animals.

All of these factors confirm the need to guarantee the rights of the villagers, including their safety while making use of pastures, to protect their livelihood, and to safeguard against the dangers and/or violations of their property rights. In order to prevent this, responsible commission work and a correct assessment of the needs of the villagers are critical, to ensure an unequivocal and total elimination and neutralization of all such obstacles and concerns.