Angelina Emiryan and her family were forcibly displaced from Stepanakert. She told in the framework of “Artsakh: Armenian Genocide 2023. Stories of Survivors” documentary project of Iravaban.net that on 19 September, the day of the Azerbaijan’s attack, she was at home with her 2 children, and the daughter was at school.
“My husband immediately went school after the child. Then we went down to the basement together. The shelling was constant during the whole day; it did not stop for a second. I left at 7 in the morning, but the shelling was still continued. We just couldn’t stay there with the children anymore, after a while we went down to the basement again,” according to Angelina, they stayed at home after the ceasefire until they were able to leave Artsakh.
There was neither gas nor electricity in those days,. They cooked food on the wood stoves. They left Stepanakert in the morning of 26 September. On the 28th, they reached Arzni, where they took refuge. “We left our house, the shop, which had an office on the 2nd floor in Artsakh. My father has left 2 houses. We only took some warm clothes for the children and came here.”
She states that they cannot live with Azerbaijanis, it was their “red line”, and 120 thousand Armenians were forcibly displaced from Artsakh in a few days.
Angelina still has no idea how they should live in Armenia. She says that they are still in such a psychological state that they are still undecided. The woman has no expectations from the UN or other international organizations.
“We have been under blockade for 10 months, no international organization, no one has helped us. I expected that there would be a war. I was ready for war, but I was not ready for displacement or surrender. I hoped that something would be resolved, that the international community would not leave us in the blockade. People could not even bring the wounded to the hospital. We were not in equal conditions,” she says.
According to Aneglina, after the 2020 war, she returned to Stepanakert, to their home: she was pregnant then. They did not think about going somewhere else. “We expected that everything will be fine. Unfortunately, it did not happen.
“Artsakh: Armenian Genocide 2023. Stories of Survivors” documentary project of Iravaban.net is aimed at collecting the memories and testimonies of citizens forcibly displaced from Artsakh occupied by Azerbaijan, about the genocide of the Armenians of Artsakh committed by Azerbaijan, atrocities, the days of war, the path of deportation, etc.
Iravaban.net seeks help from citizens who will voluntarily agree to translate materials into different languages: Russian, English, French, Arabic, Persian, Turkish, Georgian, Chinese…
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