Marine Aghabalyan was forcibly displaced from occupied Artsakh. She left on September 25th and traveled for 3 days.

“We were very scared at the Hakari bridge, they made my husband get out of the car and opened the trunk. They came to photograph me and asked where we came from, but I didn’t answer – they know very well where we came from. I still didn’t answer,” she told Iravaban.net as part of the series “Legal Issues of Artsakh Armenians in Armenia.”

They managed to take with them some documents, food, and clothing.

“Many issues arose at the passport office. At first, when we arrived, we didn’t receive pension for 6 months because they said we received our first passport in Armenia. After a lot of back and forth, we obtained Armenian citizenship, and my husband and I received our pensions,” she notes.

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The “Strengthening Protection Mechanisms for Rights of Forcibly Displaced Persons from Nagorno-Karabakh” project is implemented by the Armenian Lawyers Association in cooperation with “Harmonia” Shushi Women’s NGO within the framework of the “Monitoring of Justice Sector Reforms in Armenia” (www.juremonia.am) project funded by the European Union.

The overall objective of the project is to contribute to the integration of forcibly displaced persons from Artsakh in their new communities of residence in Armenia through strengthening mechanisms for protecting their rights, raising their level of legal awareness and access to justice and protection of their rights.

This publication was prepared with the financial support of the European Union. The Armenian Lawyers Association NGO is responsible for the content and it does not necessarily reflect the views of the European Union.

For more details, see the video.