The Azerbaijani side has repeatedly made statements that the allegedly occupied Artsakh Armenians are considered Azerbaijani citizens and are ready to issue Azerbaijani passports to them. They have also stated many times that they are ready to integrate Artsakh Armenians into their ranks. However, the dictatorial regime of Azerbaijan has been holding Artsakh Armenians hostage for 266 days, depriving them of electricity, gas, water, and bread .

Shushan Balasanyan, a resident of Artsakh and mother of four minor children, told Iravaban.net that she is not going to live under the Azerbaijani flag.

“As soon as the road opens, maybe I will leave. I am not going to raise my children under the rule of the enemy,” she said.

Shushan Balasanyan’s family lives in Martakert, she works, and her husband is a soldier. There are 8 people in the house, they get two loaves of bread a day, and starting from 30 August – one, which, naturally, is not enough for at least the children to be satisfied.

“I can buy watermelons and grapes from here, I bought them there for 1000 drams per kilogram, grapes are the same, watermelons are 650 drams per kilogram. No matter what we do, there is no other sweet, no other fruit. The children really want bread and cheese, but there is none, so I try to buy at least these fruits so that the children can eat them in the morning and in the afternoon, and we can all eat the remaining bread at dinner time,” Shushan said.

Suppressing her excitement, she mentioned that there had been days without bread.

“There was an incident. I saw that my children were eating dry bread. I got angry with them. I said: wait, the time for bread will come, we will eat together. Then I got angry with myself for getting angry with my children for bread, but we became nervous because of this situation,” Shushan emphasized.

For some time in Artsakh, bread was distributed by coupons, which made it possible to avoid the seemingly endless queues and everyone was able to get their spare daily bread.

“Since there is no flour now, the bakeries are not working, only one bakery is working in the whole Martakert, there is not enough bread, we do not look at the coupons anymore, we take two loaves of bread a day,” she said.

Shushan lists what is not in the house: oil, salt, sugar… then she says, “I better list what is there, it will be easier that way.”

“When I look at my shelves, I cry, there is nothing I do not need. There are potatoes, there are onions, we still manage to pick some things from the garden and I understand that it is more difficult in Stepanakert, they are in a worse condition, and there are no gardens. We keep chickens, we have eggs. I have been looking for honey for two weeks to give my children instead of sugar, but there is none, either they give it to their friends or keep it to sell it at a higher price in the winter. My friend gave the salt, they bought sugar at the store for 2900 drams per kg,” she says.

The third of Shushan’s four children should go to school this year.

“I am very worried; I do not know what to do. They say that the kindergarten should be closed because there is no food, the little one should stay at home. I think that the class hours should be shortened, the children should not stay at school for too long, going to school is a problem, it is far away. Not to mention that there are no means of hygiene, I have to wash clothes every day, but I cannot, that is what bothers me,” she said.

In addition to physical torture, people in Artsakh experience psychological problems, fear, uncertainty, and disappointment. Our interlocutor said that it was already very difficult to bear everything, she was not able to continue speaking as started to cry.

“I can’t control myself, it doesn’t work. Especially when my four children come and say we are hungry and there is nothing at that moment, I get stressed. My 6-year-old son said to me, let’s go to the store, I said that there is nothing in the store, but he forced me and took me to the store, we entered, he looked at the shelves and got sad and came out, and  said, “Mom, are you going to kill the Turks, because they made the stores like this?” My 4-year-old daughter ate a cake at my neighbor’s house, and then she ran away to their house and asked for more cake. I do not know, I cannot talk to children, I take everything very hard, maybe that is also a mistake, I cannot explain,” Shushan said.

Hasmik Sargsyan

Photo: Davit Ghahramanyan.