BY JASMINE SEYMOUR
Special to Asbarez
Beatrice Euljekjian, the mother Lebanese-Armenian prisoner of war Vicken Euljekjian, who has been held in an Azerbaijani prison in Baku since 2020, passed away on April 21 in Lebanon after suffering a heart attack.
On Thursday, April 21, at around 5:04 a.m. London time, I noticed a missed called from Vicken’s wife, Linda Euljekjian. At 5:18 a.m. there was a message: “Vicken’s mother passed away.”
Only hours before, on Thursday afternoon and evening, we had spoken on the phone, therefore this tragic news was totally unexpected. That morning a Red Cross official had visited their small family apartment outside Beirut, where Linda lives with her daughter Christine and her mother-in-law Beatrice.
The Red Cross staff usually deliver letters from Vicken and take back letters from family members back to him. This is the only permitted communication avenue with the external world for all Armenian captives being unlawfully held in Azerbaijan. No visitors, including foreign diplomats, lawyers, or clergy are allowed to visit them.
Armenian POW Vicken Euljekjian is seen in an Azerbaijani court in June, 2021 (Trend.az photo)
“We are all dead, we have stopped eating or sleeping or living, all we want is for Vicken to return home soon,” Linda, who has been married to Vicken since 2000, said.
The clearing process for each letter from the POWs takes up to several weeks if not months, to be translated from Armenian and scrutinized by the Azerbaijani authorities before being released to the families. While letters are left with families, the pre-recorded videos of the captives are shown only on Red Cross staff mobile devices. No photo or video is entrusted to the families.
On the morning of April 21, a Red Cross staff member showed a routine video recording from Vicken.
Beatrice Euljekjian and her husband, Apraham
“He looks like an 85-year-old man, he is unrecognizable,” a tearful Linda told me. “It breaks our hearts to see him in this state. His mom has been in complete shock to see that her son has changed so much.”
Hours later Vicken’s mother, Digin Beatrice, passed away.
After watching Vicken’s latest video from prison, Linda and Beatrice became extremely concerned about his health. Vicken’s 20-year-old daughter Christine was at work and missed the Red Cross visit. The only two letters brought by Red Cross from Vicken were addressed to his wife and his son.
“Why doesn’t he write to me anymore?” Beatrice kept asking anxiously. Yet what was even more upsetting for her, was to see Vicken look twice his age within two and half years in Azerbaijani captivity.
Beatrice Euljekjian died of heart attack hours after seeing her son’s video. She left this world in grief, in despair, unable to help her son who has been imprisoned unlawfully in an unknown country. All she knew was that Azerbaijan had attacked Artsakh and Armenia.
Her funeral took place in the Holy Savior Armenian Catholic Church in the Bourdj Hammoud neighborhood of Beirut, where she was married and where her children and grandchildren were baptized.
Christine Euljekjian at the Bourdj Hamoud cemetery after the death of her grandmother
In 2018, Vicken, her youngest son had decided to move to Armenia, where he had received his Armenian passport and was promised an apartment in Shushi by the Diaspora High Commission. He was eager to settle down and take his children to Armenia in hopes of providing them a better future in his homeland. But after the Azerbaijani military aggression on September 27, 2020, his dreams and plans were shattered forever.
Beatrice Euljekjian (Jamkochian), was born in Aleppo, Syria in 1950, to a family of Armenian Genocide survivors who miraculously escaped the massacres in their hometown of Aintab, once part of the Armenian Kingdom of Cilicia.
At the age of 19, Beatrice had married Abraham Euljekjian from Beirut with whom she had four sons, Vicken being the youngest.
“Vicken had a special place in our mother’s heart,” said Sako, Vicken’s older brother. “Not only because he was the youngest, but he was a miracle baby, the only survivor of the twins that my mother gave birth to.”
The tragedy of the situation of the Armenian POWs is equally tragic for their families, who suffer every day waiting for their loved ones return.
Vicken’s daughter, 20-year-old Christine, had been forced to abandon her education to work 14-hour shifts every day to pay the rent and support her family Lebanese economic collapse and crisis persist. Now, she has also lost her biggest support—her Nene— her rock, who always made her laugh.
“I have always lived with her. She was a mountain of strength, I have always dreaded this moment, but now it has come at the worst time of our lives,” Christine told me.
Christine was only 17 when she started campaigning for her father’s release over two and a half year ago. With the unlawful capture of her father by Azerbaijani soldiers near Shushi on November 10, 2020, Christine suddenly lost her childhood and prematurely became an adult.
It is hard to find any words to ease the pain of this family caught in this lamentable hostage crisis, however, I am reminding them that they are among the “lucky ones.” Thousands of young Armenian servicemen have lost their lives, that hundreds of Armenian captives were brutally murdered in captivity, while 300 more are still missing since the 2020 Artsakh War.
For centuries Armenian mothers, like Beatrice Euljekjian, have been the paragons of fortitude, raising their children with the Armenian language, cultural identity and patriotism in Lebanon and across Armenian diaspora communities. Therefore, the fight of this resilient mother must be continued until her son, a civilian hostage captured after the November 9, 2020 ceasefire agreement, is released from the Azerbaijani hell. Vicken continues to claim his innocence and denies all charges brought against him during a sham trial in a Baku court that has sentenced him to 20 years imprisonment in one of the most notorious prisons in the world.
Who is the brave leader or the valiant knight to bring back innocent Armenian hostages to their grieving families? I am calling on ALL leaders of international organizations, religious leaders and progressive countries: PLEASE SAVE THE LIVES OF INNOCENT ARMENIAN CAPTIVES AND THEIR FAMILIES.
Jasmine Seymour is an activist who established the British Armenian Group, which focuses on campaigning for the release of Armenian prisoners of war currently being held captive in Azerbaijan. The organization has been circulating a petition on change.org and is urging the public to sign the plea to release Armenian POWs.