Asbarez: Border Breach Victim Says If She Hadn’t Acted ‘We Would Have Died’

Border breach victim Ani Avetisyan in her hospital room (Azatutyun.am screen capture)

‘What Would Azerbaijan Think,’ Worried a Pro-Pashinyan Lawmaker Before Rejecting Opposition Request to Call Law Enforcement to a Hearing

Ani Avetisyan, a Syunik resident who sustained serious injuries when an Azerbaijani soldier, having breached Armenia’s border, entered her house and held her children at gunpoint, said had she not taken swift action she and her children would be dead.

The incident, which took place earlier this month, was downplayed by Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, who called it a “regular criminal incident.” He went on to rebuke the Avetisyan for not waiting for law enforcement and acted on her own to defend her family.

“If I hadn’t acted at that moment, neither I nor the children would have been alive now,” Avetisyan told Azatutyun.am.

After getting a phone call from one of her teenage children about an intruder in their residence, Avetisyan rushed to her house, which is in the village of Shaki. She confirmed her sister’s account of the events that the Azerbaijani soldier, Nasimi Musayev, held them at gunpoint.

“I stepped forward, he saw me, pointed [his assault rifle] at me, fired a shot and missed,” Avetisyan told Azatutyun from her hospital bed. “I stepped further forward … He pointed the gun at my son to shoot him. I pulled it away with my hand which got injured [by a second shot.]”

“Then he threw me onto the bed and started hitting me,” Avetisyan said. “That’s when I started fighting back. I told my daughter to go open the gate. I tried to get my son out too, but he wouldn’t leave. At that point, [Musayev] pointed the gun at my chest, intending to shoot, but I forcefully pushed the weapon down, and [a third gunshot] hit my foot.”

In her wounded state, Avetisyan managed to stab Musayev with a kitchen knife before he fled the house and was caught shortly afterward. She lost one of her fingers and needs to undergo more surgeries on her fractured foot in a hospital in Yerevan.

Avetisyan said that although she called the local police just before rushing to Shaki from the nearby town of Sisian, police officers arrived in her house at least five minutes after Musayev had fled. Sisian’s police station is closer to Shaki than a local hotel where she was first notified of the intrusion.

Armenia’s Security Services claimed on Tuesday that law enforcement arrived within 10 minutes of Avetisyan’s call.

According to Azerbaijani authorities, Musayev deserted his military unit deployed on the Armenian border on September 26. Armenia’s National Security Service claimed to have been notified by them about his disappearance on September 29. Avetisyan decried the NSS’s failure to issue security alerts to residents of Shaki—about 12 miles from the Azerbaijani border—and other local communities.

“Had they warned us, I would not have sent the kids to school and we would not have stayed in Shaki,” she said.

As Avetisyan is being hailed a hero, the incident has sent shockwaves in Armenia, especially in the border areas.

The government’s efforts to downplay the incident prompted the opposition Armenia Alliance to propose a hearing by the parliament’s relevant committee, where all security services would explain the events that led to the breach of Armenia’s national border and the home invasion that could have had deadly consequences for an Armenian citizen and her family.

“I can assure you that, from morning till night, the public will not only subjectively discuss this issue, but also exploit it. Our proposal is to put an end to these matters through a commission—to clarify the issues there, rather than having people simply say whatever comes to mind,” said Gegham Manukyan, a lawmaker from Armenia Alliance, on Tuesday as he was presenting the proposal to the committee.

The parliament’s Defense and National Security Committee on Tuesday rejected the Armenia Alliance proposal, saying that during an ongoing investigation, it would not be prudent for the country’s security services to be called to parliament. After a two-hour deliberation, the committee chair agreed to invite the relevant bodies, but not for a hearing.

What would Azerbaijan think? This concern was voiced by Sasoon Mkrtichyan, a member of Pashinyan’s ruling Civil Contract Party.

“Enough already—some disturbed Azerbaijani has wandered into a village. We’re making such a huge fuss about it from this podium that they’ll [Azerbaijanis] think, ‘Man, look at that—this one little guy wandered in, and all of Armenia is trembling with fear,’” Mkrtichyan said during the defense and national security committee session on Tuesday.