Ms. Hasmik Nalbandian was forcibly displaced from the Kolatak village of the Martakert region of the occupied Artsakh Republic. She told this in the framework of “Artsakh: Armenian Genocide 2023: Stories of Survivors” documentary project.
“We were forcibly displaced from Karvachar for the first time in 2020. Then we returned to Artsakh and settled in Kolatak village of Martakert. My husband was a military servant and we were provided a house and lived there. On 1 January, 2023, when my husband died in an accident, we moved to Stepanakert, we were staying on rent. My child was a student; I went with him so that we could live together. When the war began, we were at work. It was noon, we had come home to take a break, my son was still in college, and he had not come home. When the shooting started, we had no idea what was happening,” Hasmik said.
According to her, she did not know what to do, the boy was in college. Everyone was in panic because they had already gone through it, they imagined what would happen.
“We knew what war is. We called our relatives. All the parents were worried. There was no safe place. We didn’t know where they were shooting from. We were told not to worry, there are shelters everywhere, and everyone is in shelters. We were sitting in uncertainty, we had no news from any of our relatives, and we only knew that a war had started. One was anxious for her son and the other for her husband,” Hasmik said.
She tells that they spent the whole night under fire, she cannot forget. “We had not seen anything yet, it was terrible for us, but from the sound of those shots, we knew how many soldiers’ lives are being destroyed, how many youth are sacrificing their lives as it turns out for nothing,” she said.
The “Artsakh: Armenian Genocide 2023: Stories of Survivors” documentary project of Iravaban.net aims to collect the memories and testimonies of citizens forcibly displaced from Artsakh occupied by Azerbaijan, about the genocide of the Armenians of Artsakh allowed by Azerbaijan, atrocities, days of the war, the path of deportation, etc.
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Details in the video.
Hasmik Sargsyan
