Arshaluys Milonyan, forcibly displaced from the occupied Republic of Artsakh, told in the framework of “Artsakh: Armenian Genocide 2023. Stories of Survivors” documentary project that she was forcibly displaced from Stepanakert, the capital city of the occupied Artsakh Republic.
She has been displaced for the 3rd time as a result of the actions of the aggressor enemy. In 1992, she was displaced from Old Karmiravan.
“Then we moved to Nor Karmiravan. In 2020, we were displaced from there. We moved to Stepanakert. We lost my brother, Garik Galstyan, who was a scout. The 19 September, 2023 was the final blow. I had a meeting that day. They said that it was tense situation in Askeran. And then there was a blow, the whole building shaked. The people were running away, explosions, shouting. Azerbaijan launched an armed attack in different directions. There were a lot of strikes in the Krkzhan area. I wondered where my brother’s children were, what was happening, everyone was running, there was no connection. We went out and saw that the city was lost in smoke. Someone was shouting, “My child is gone.” At that moment, I didn’t know who to calm down, I wondered whether the would be someone to calm me down. We decided to go out, the police said: dear parents, they can hit the square at any moment, don’t go,” she says.
She emphasizes that they targeted the civilian population.
“A shell fell near the university, deaths were recorded. In short, I came home. My two-year-old child says: “Mommy, they did dump-dump, I am afraid.” And so thousands of children did. I do not know how these days passed. On the one hand, there was a problem of bread. There was no electricity, no gas, and there was a problem with water as well. Where would the people find bread in those days if they were afraid for their lives and their children’s lives?
According to Arshaluys, the citizen was deprived of basic conditions, gas and electricity in the 21st century.
“Whoever had the opportunity burned wood, but wood became a problem later, because there was no fuel or there was, but for astronomical costs. Gradually the ring got tighter. At first, we did not realize what would happen next. Who can imagine that a person could have a pasta problem in the 21st century, this is ridiculous. How we endured those nine months, only God knows. We would have endured more; we would have endured for thousands of months, if only they allow… We were already squeezing bread and salt from the stone. We got used to this daily routine, we endured the hardships, only to be left in our native land,” our interlocutor said.
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Details in the video.
Hasmik Sargsyan
