We were forcibly displaced from the city of Stepanakert. Victoria Petrosyan, who was forcibly displaced from the occupied Republic of Artsakh, told in the framework of “Artsakh: Armenian Genocide 2023: Stories of Survivors” documentary project.
“When the 44-day war began, my husband left us in the basement and went to the positions, urging me to take the children and leave Artsakh by the first available car. I had several chances to leave, but I rejected all of them to stay in Artsakh. Then the news reached my husband, he sent his friend from Yerevan to take me. We left on the night of 30 September. We stayed in Armenia for a few months, but then we returned, we settled everything, we took our children to kindergarten, everything seemed to be normalized. After all that, I decided that I should have two more boys. My third child was born after the war and with it I wanted to show my firm attachment to our land that no matter what happens, we must stand by our land. For me, there was a great hope that we would somehow be able to keep ours, we didn’t know that other things were happening behind our backs. Everything was beyond our strength, and that we had to leave and come,” she said.
Artsakh was illegally besieged for about nine months. Our interlocutor said: it was difficult, unspeakably difficult. But she overcame that difficulty, hoping again to stay on her land, in her home. “I never complained. The biggest problem was not having transport and traveling on foot. I even walked to the hospital for my baby’s vaccinations. Once we even got caught in a very heavy rain. I used to cut a carrot into two parts and cook it for two days. We didn’t live, we survived, but most importantly, we were happy,” she said.
Victoria was alone at home with 10-month-old Astghik when on 19 September, 2023 the enemy unleashed another aggression against Artsakh. “I prepared a meal without oil; my child ate with great pleasure. I even sent the photo to my husband, he said: I like such meals, keep some for me, I will come and eat it. And I thought he would say: ‘what have you cooked?’ I was getting ready to put my baby to sleep. I heard loud noises, I opened the door and our neighbor’s son said it was the sound of a shell. When he said that, I already had goose-pimples, I was alone with Astghik, my other children were in different places. I was intimidated, I couldn’t decide where to run,” our interlocutor said.
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Details in the video.
Hasmik Sargsyan
