Category: 2023

Oct 22 2023

FITCHBURG — Fitchburg and Lancaster recently hosted an international group from Armenia, as part of the Open World grant program which focuses on advancing women’s leadership at the local government level.

Five young women working in city and town government spent a week in Washington, DC, and then a week in the Cambridge and Boston area, where they were hosted by the Cambridge-Yerevan Sister City Association (CYSCA).

“We wanted our delegates, most of whom work in small communities in Armenia, to experience town and small city government,” explains CYSCA President Roxanne Etmekjian. “We thought Lancaster and Fitchburg, where our organization has members, would be a great way for these extraordinary women officials a chance to see more of Massachusetts.”

The visit began at Lancaster Town Hall with Rep. Natalie Higgins, Rep. Meg Kilcoyne, and Town Select Board member Alix Turner, whose first question to the delegation was “what is your biggest challenge as an elected official?”

Meri Harutyunyan, Deputy Head of Development and Investment, Programs Department for Yerevan Municipality said, “If we met in September, and you asked what our challenges were, we would say climate change, gender roles, needs of youth.”

But everyone said their answer changed after September. That is when 100,000 Armenians living in Artsakh were forced to evacuate after a 10 month blockade, and then violence from the Azeri army. Armenians have been living in Artsakh (known as “Nagorno Karabagh” since 1918) for thousands of years.

“Now, we have lots of Armenians from Artsakh,” said Harutyunyan. “Armenia has had a painful page, of territorial loss, and loss of soldiers.” This is the second war that has devastated the country; two years earlier, Azerbaijan soldiers invaded the border, and took the town of Shushi.

“Many people were forcefully displaced. The government tried to help them to buy a house. But the prices on houses started going up. And students traveling to Yerevan to study – they could not afford a place.”

“Right now, everyone is working on a volunteer basis to provide shelter and food,” said Shushanik Danielyan, member of Yeghegis City Council. “The government started the process to give a one-time stipend to get settled, and then for six months.”

In Armenia, many women are in government, but out of 12 ministries in the country, only two are led by women. “But the majority of deputy ministers are women,” added Harutyunyan, Deputy Head of Development and Investment Programs Department for Yerevan Municipality.

In Armenia, there is passive voter registration. “Everyone automatically is registered when they turn 18.” But the turnout is still low – 28% for a recent city council election.

Political parties dominate the scene – and in 2016 the country passed a law requiring 30% of all candidates (in a political party on the ballot) would be women. However, there are “many pressures on women” not to serve when elected. “Women get elected but then party pressure, family pressure, so women drop out. And when a woman drops out, a man moves up,” said Shushanik Danielyan, a member of the Yeghegis City Council.

Arusyak Avetisyan, who was the youngest attendee and had recently been elected as a member of the Vardenis Local Council said, “There are a few times when my opinion was not heard at council meetings.” She started a Facebook page, and said “members are pretty active following me on Facebook.” After one meeting, “the leader said, “come talk at the meeting, don’t post on Facebook.”

Younger members of the delegation reported that older government candidates would ask them to post on Facebook “because people know us.”

“You have to educate the women to run,” one commented, “But you also have to educate the men.”

The Delegation visited seniors at the Senior Center, took a tour of downtown Fitchburg, and were impressed by the professional studios at FATV. Apart from Yerevan, there is no community television in smaller towns.

At City Hall, they met with Mayor DiNatale, City Councilor Amy Green, Fitchburg City Councilor Claire Freda, Fitchburg, and FATV’s George Mirijanian over a lunch from Espresso’s (the first time the Armenian delegation had tried U.S. pizza). Mirijanian presented the delegation with a copy of “Around the World In Fitchburg” which has a chapter on the Armenian emigrants to Fitchburg.

Councilor Amy Green asked whether women were oppressed in Armenia. Hartyunyan explained, “the main challenge we face is gender discrimination.” However, all agreed that in Armenia the biggest threat is security – Azerbaijani troops are stationed on the borders.

Mayor DiNatale asked about their visit with members of Congress in Washington, DC. Lilit Hajatyan, member of Artik Local Council said, “When we were having meetings in DC, they were talking about Israel and Ukraine, and I said, ‘Why do you only speak about those countries – in Artsakh it’s genocide too, they are killing children.

They said, “we are not talking loudly about that, but we are working on it. They are asking Azerbaijan not to do that, but they are also sending money to buy arms.”

Shushanik Danielyan explained, “we have churches that have been there [in Artsakh] for thousands of years, and they are destroying them. They are eliminating national treasures – songs, and carpets and the arts.”

Lilit added, “They are trying to persuade the world that Lake Sevan is in Azerbaijan, and they are lying and the world is listening.”

As many delegates come from rural areas (70% of Armenians live outside of Yerevan), everyone enjoyed their visit to Hollis Hills Farm at the end of the day. Owner Jim Lattanzi spoke to the group about how the Farm is a tourist destination, with weekend music events, a partnership with Fitchburg Library for a  warm-weather reading program, restaurant and food items for sale, as well as apple and fruit picking.

“Everything is farm to table in Armenia,” said Lilit Antonyan, political assistant in the US Embassy in Armenia. “These are all great ideas!”

The day concluded with the group enjoying a visit with the goats and cows and Lattanzi observed, “What a pleasure to host this Armenian women’s delegation at our family farm. To share our experiences as farmers, share our business model and discuss opportunities we have pursued as we provide good food for our community was exciting. No matter the language barrier, food brings people together and we enjoyed our time with them.”

Sally Cragin serves as a City Councilor-At-Large in Fitchburg. 

https://www.sentinelandenterprise.com/2023/10/22/armenian-women-politicians-visit-for-cultural-exchange/

MEDYA News

Oct 22 2023

Signs of torture and mutilation on the remains of Armenians from Nagorno-Karabakh (Artsakh) who were killed during Azerbaijan’s attack in September were reported by the Human Rights Defender of Armenia Anahit Manasyan on Thursday. Manasyan noted that her preliminary report on the ill-treatment and torture in question was used by lawyers representing Armenia in a hearing at the International Court of Justice last week.

The report outlined findings of torture and mutilations on numerous bodies transported from Nagorno-Karabakh to Armenia, including civilians, women and children. This evidence highlights the brutal acts alleged to have been committed during the conflict.

In November 2020, a Russian-brokered ceasefire was signed between Armenia and Azerbaijan, ending the six-week war over Nagorno-Karabakh. However, post-war tensions remained, with sporadic border clashes throughout 2021. On 12 December 2022, the Azerbaijani government allegedly orchestrated a blockade of the Republic of Artsakh by deploying citizens claiming to be eco-activists to obstruct the Lachin corridor, a vital humanitarian link between Nagorno-Karabakh and Armenia and the outside world, using environmental protests as a pretext. This blockade significantly impeded access to essential supplies for the residents of the region, notably in Stepanakert, the former de facto capital of Nagorno-Karabakh. The situation further escalated in September 2023 when Azerbaijan launched a swift offensive, leading to the dissolution of the self-proclaimed Republic of Nagorno-Karabakh. This offensive triggered a mass exodus of local ethnic Armenians, exacerbating the humanitarian crisis in the region.

Manasyan, along with the Human Rights Commissioner of the Council of Europe, Dunja Mijatović, visited the Kotayk province on Wednesday and met with displaced Nagorno-Karabakh residents temporarily housed there. They spoke with around 105 forcibly displaced individuals, including 40 children.

“Private interviews were held with forcibly displaced persons. They presented the deprivations they suffered and the problems caused by the forced displacement to the Defender and the Human Rights Commissioner of the Council of Europe”, a statement from the office of Armenia’s Human Rights Defender revealed.

Following the ethnic cleansing of Nagorno-Karabakh, the Azeri media showcased Azerbaijan’s president İlham Aliyev trampling on the Artsakh flag in Stepanakert on 16 October.

https://medyanews.net/torture-signs-on-bodies-of-nagorno-karabakh-armenians-human-rights-defender-of-armenia/

Oct 22 2023

By Eurasianet - Oct 21, 2023, 2:00 PM CDT

The 35-year-old Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict could finally be coming to an end after last month's lightning offensive by Azerbaijan to retake Nagorno-Karabakh and the subsequent exodus of the region's Armenian population and dissolution of its de facto government. 

The fate of the Karabakh Armenians had long been the main sticking point in the peace talks underway since 2021. Now that that issue has been resolved, however crudely, and the sides have vowed to recognize one another's territorial integrity, it might seem that a conclusion could be at hand. 

But things aren't that simple. Apart from the actual content of a peace deal – chiefly border delimitation/demarcation and the opening of transit links – the sides are at odds over who should mediate.

Up to this point there have been two separate tracks of negotiations, one mediated by Russia and the other by the European Union with U.S. help.

Now, after Azerbaijan's takeover of Karabakh, Armenia is more dissatisfied than ever with its nominal strategic partner Russia and is increasingly positive on the West. Azerbaijan, meanwhile, has been expressing distaste with Western mediation and calling for a regional solution to the conflict, one that could involve Russia, Turkey and Iran, or, perhaps, just Georgia. 

Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan had been due to meet in the presence of European mediators on the sidelines of the European Political Community Summit in Granada, Spain, on October 5.  

But Aliyev backed out. The presence of France, an ally of Armenia that has offered to sell it defensive weapons, and the exclusion of Azerbaijan's strategic partner Turkey were the reasons, his advisor later explained. 

Pashinyan went anyway, and talked Armenia-Azerbaijan peace with President Charles Michel of the European Council, President Emmanuel Macron of France and Chancellor Olaf Scholz of Germany. 

Those four released a joint statement afterwards expressing commitment to the normalization of relations between Baku and Yerevan, and the two countries' mutual respect for one another's sovereignty and territorial integrity.

The statement also emphasized the importance of "strict adherence to the principle of non-use of force and threat of use of force." Concerns persist in Armenia that Azerbaijan could invade in order to force the establishment of a transit corridor, and the EU wants assurances from Baku that it won't do so.

A few days later, Armenia decided to skip a meeting of leaders and foreign ministers of Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) members in Bishkek. Aliyev criticized the move, as supposedly a separate meeting was to be held between Armenian, Azerbaijani and Russian foreign ministers on the sidelines of the event. 

"We perceive the mediation of the Russian Federation with gratitude because Russia is our neighbor and ally, as well as Armenia's ally. This country is located in our region, unlike those who are thousands of kilometers away. Naturally, the history of relations between our countries presupposes the mediation of the Russian side," Aliyev said while receiving security council heads of CIS state members. 

"Now, this invites the question: does Armenia want peace? I think not, because if it had wanted peace, it would not have missed this opportunity. The Armenian prime minister flies six hours to Granada and participates in an incomprehensible meeting there, where Azerbaijan is discussed without actually being present, but he cannot fly for two to three hours to Bishkek. He has other important things to do," Aliyev added.

After Aliyev met Russian President Vladimir Putin in Bishkek on October 13, Putin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov expressed a similar view. "Baku has a very constructive position on this [signing a peace treaty], while Yerevan has not quite decided yet," he said.

The rift between Armenia and Russia further widened when Pashinyan told the European Parliament on October 17 that Russia was trying to topple him. 

"When the 100,000 Armenians were fleeing from Nagorno-Karabakh to Armenia, our security allies not only failed to help us, but were publicly calling for a change of government, overthrowing the democratic government in Armenia," he said.

Russian state media the following day quoted a "high-ranking" Russian official as calling Pashinyan's statement "provocative" and suggesting Armenia could suffer the same fate as Ukraine, which Russia has waged full-scale war against for the past 18 months. 

"We see that there's an attempt to turn Armenia into a Ukraine number three. If we consider that Moldova is Ukraine number two, Pashinyan is going by leaps and bounds down the path of [Ukrainian President] Volodymyr Zelensky," the unnamed official said.

Exclaves complicate border talks

When Armenia and Azerbaijan finally begin delimiting their common border, one of the more difficult issues is likely to be that of exclaves – the tiny islands of each country's territory that are surrounded entirely by the other's.

During the First Karabakh War in the 1990s all of these villages, most of which are actually far from Karabakh, were abandoned and taken over by the surrounding power. There are three Azerbaijani exclaves in Armenia and one Armenian exclave in Azerbaijan. There are also several bits of territory contiguous with contiguous with each country that the other sliced off during the first war.

After Pashinyan signed the statement affirming Azerbaijan's territorial integrity in Granada, Aliyev told European Council President Charles Michel by phone on October 7 that eight villages of Azerbaijan were "still under Armenian occupation, and stressed the importance of liberating these villages from occupation."  

Asked by Armenian Public TV about this claim in an interview on October 10, Pashinyan did not comment directly but said that Azerbaijan has likewise been occupying several Armenian villages since the 1990s.

"We proposed a solution to that issue back in 2021 and said let's decide what the delimitation map is, and pull back the troops simultaneously from the border line according to that map. These are very important nuances," he said.

Azerbaijan's Foreign Ministry in response said that Baku does not occupy any Armenian villages and suggested that Pashinyan was making that claim in order to justify Armenia's occupation of Azerbaijani villages. 

(In June Pashinyan appeared to acknowledge the validity of Azerbaijan's claims on at least one village currently controlled by Armenia.)

Another issue that will need to be addressed in the border talks is the presence of Azerbaijani troops deep inside what's generally regarded as Armenian territory. 

Azerbaijan has made several incursions into Armenia since the 2020 war and currently holds an estimated 215 square kilometers of its land.

By Heydar Isayev via Eurasianet.org

https://oilprice.com/Geopolitics/International/Armenia-Azerbaijan-Peace-Talks-Reach-Critical-Crossroads.html

The Sunday Times, Sri Lanka

Oct 22 2023

In line with its vision to guide students to become successful, Queen’s International Business Campus successfully held the scholarship awarding ceremony for students seeking a career as medical professionals following the MBBS/MD program in Yerevan State Medical University in Armenia. The prestigious event was recently held at BMICH with the participation of special invitees from Yerevan State Medical University and a large gathering of students and parents.

Over one hundred students have been selected to follow six year MBBS/ MD program out of over 2000 applicants who faced an entrance examination. At QIB Campus (www.qibcampus.com) pathway to become an internationally recognized doctor, what is required as basic qualification is two credits and one simple pass in G.C.E. A Level’s biology stream.

According to the MBBS/MD program in Yerevan State Medical University Armenia in Eastern Europe ,after completion of five years degree program and one year internship that follows , one can work as a recognized doctor in Armenia for a monthly salary of over 2500 USD-3000 USD. Also the MBBS/MD graduate after exams can work in other countries including USA, UK, Canda ,Australia and Sri Lanka.

QIB Campus has a proud history of over 20 years , supporting students to obtain university degrees overseas in addition to having its own courses awarding diplomas in many disciplines. Located in Godagama , Homagama .  QIB campus hold free English classes for students who are following university degree program. Students can follow 1st and 2nd year studies at QIB campus or Singapore,  move to UK or Canada or Australia for the completion of their degree program. QIB campus has so far supported nearly 3000 students to obtain foreign university degrees and succeed their lives.

QIB Campus’s pathway to become a doctor through Yerevan State medical university in Armenia can be introduced as one of the most cost effective and easy means of achieving your target. As A level results were delaying , A/L results pending students are also encouraged to  apply for 2023 intake . Closing date for applications has been extended to  30th October 2023 and departure will be on 15th November 2023.

For further information
contact 0777855855 or 0729855855.

https://www.sundaytimes.lk/231022/education/qib-campus-awards-scholarships-to-follow-medical-degree-in-eastern-europe-armenia-536417.html

Oct 22 2023

https://www.rfi.fr/en/podcasts/international-report/20231022-as-azerbaijan-and-turkey-join-forces-fears-of-conflict-with-armenia-grow

Oct 22 2023

Oct 22 2023

For nearly three years, Siranush Sargsyan has documented Azerbaijan’s siege of the 120,000 indigenous Armenians in her disputed homeland of Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh). The former history teacher and state worker turned wartime freelance journalist is now among the over 100,700 forcibly displaced taking refuge in neighboring Armenia.

“I’m the protagonist of the photos and articles I produce because I want to tell these stories. This is history. This is the reality we must show,” said Sargsyan, an Artsakh native, now living in the neighboring Republic of Armenia. “This is also my story, my family story. I’m also the victim of the war that I report on. This is also my reality and I show it with hopes to end the atrocities we endured.”

Sargsyan, 39, has survived two major wars (1992-94 and 2020) while documenting Azerbaijan’s systematic ethnic cleansing of the disputed enclave. She has witnessed indiscriminate atrocities upon her people, and lost countless family members, acquaintances, classmates and teachers. She lived through the Azerbaijan-imposed starvation campaign for nearly 10 months—which sealed off Artsakh from the outside world, cutting off electricity, food, gas and medical supplies.

Azerbaijan’s final offensive, under the guise of “anti-terrorist activities” on Sept. 19 brought further bombing to the besieged civilians across Artsakh. Sargsyan’s social media posts showed weary residents sheltering in basements, scenes of barraged apartment buildings, and a haunting image of a mother and child clinging together (distributed via AP). In her BBC article on a traumatized mother whose 8- and 10-year-old sons were victims of the bombing, she detailed a mother’s insistence to transport her children’s remains to Armenia for burial.

“When the Sept. 19 bombardment started, I first rushed into a basement shelter, then soon walked out and started to video the distant smoke from the bomb blasts, the silence and the voices. The neighborhood’s bombed buildings haunted me the most—I walked the backyards under the sky-high laundry lines the women proudly hung.” said Sargsyan. Her footage of backyard laundry lines flapping in mid-air between high-rise buildings was among her last from Artsakh.

Delaying her departure, Sargsyan couldn’t reconcile the emotional trauma of leaving behind her generational home, her life of 39 years—unable to physically disconnect from her homeland.

“Azerbaijan didn’t provide a realistic option of co-existence. Its military took over our lands letting us know that we should leave,” Sargsyan’s posted on X, formerly known as Twitter, captured her state of mind:

In like one day, you lose everything. I lost myself. I wanted to stay more, to remember every corner of my city.

Siranush Sargsyan

When she finally packed, she chose a few precious earrings and books from her collection. She left behind most of her clothing with memories of a happier life in Artsakh, and her special rug, too heavy to carry. She met others in the crowded town square of the capital city Stepanakert to join the snaking queue of overpacked cars and buses spilling out of Artsakh through the mountainous road toward Armenia—an exodus visible through satellite images from space. The heavens watched the trail of tears and memories of the horrors of an exodus from the ancient land while world powers remained largely immobile to calls for action.

Sargsyan compares the “physically, emotionally and psychologically unbearable” 30-hour grueling exodus, to the forced march of her ancestors 108 years ago during the Armenian genocide. The Ottoman Turks forced hundreds of thousands of Armenian refugees into death marches through the scorching heat of the Deir ez Zor desert in modern-day Syria.

“Maybe it’s not comparable, but the pain and trauma we lived through over the past years, and the nearly 10 months of blockade, felt like we were bleeding daily, drop by drop. Then Azerbaijan completed its mission by bombing us—and the final assault of the gas depot explosion was indescribable. Azerbaijan turned our heavenly country and our lives into a hellish existence. People just wanted to run away from that hell.”

At each stop on the journey toward Armenia, she conversed with the dazed and traumatized residents—some displaced multiple times—but all aspiring to return to Artsakh. After some 30 hours, arriving at the central-eastern border village of Kornidzor in Armenia, in the early morning hours, she was welcomed to her “homeland” of Armenia by volunteers offering food and water. 

Feeling “limbless,” she walked through the large crowds of her countrymen hovering and lined up around humanitarian aid tents.

“It was unbearable. We didn’t realize at that time that this was our last journey out of our homeland. For the first time, I realized I was a refugee who didn’t have a home,” Sargsyan said.  

“I’m surprised when journalists ask me ‘Why didn’t you stay in Artsakh?’ It’s really frustrating—they don’t know or pretend they don’t know that we didn’t have any other choice—and wouldn’t be alive if we stayed. We want the rest of the world and everyone to know that we had no other choice but to leave our homeland. We were victimized and not offered any other alternatives.”

Sargsyan said many families lost loved ones days before their departure. “This is not a normal thing for people, to bury relatives and the next day flee their homeland.”

Sargsyan is a native of Sos, a grape farming community in eastern Artsakh of just over 1,000 inhabitants—home to the Fourth-Century Christian Armenian Amaras Monastery, where Armenian alphabet creator, Mesrop Mashtots, established the first Armenian school. Armenia adopted Christianity as its state religion in 301 AD, which is reflected in the centuries-old Christian Armenian cathedrals and monasteries dotting Artsakh and Armenia’s rugged mountain terrain and valleys. 

In her quest to “change the world,” Sargsyan entrenched herself in politics. She taught herself English and was employed in the Artsakh parliament, where she enrolled in the Public Administration Academy to study political science.

“I wanted to see more women in politics who could improve decision-making and create a better living environment in Artsakh,” Sargsyan said. She even campaigned, unsuccessfully, for the 15-member all-male Stepanakert City Council.

In September 2020, Azerbaijan, with NATO member Turkey’s backing, unleashed an unprovoked 44-day war on Artsakh. Amnesty International’s Crisis Response experts “identified Israeli-made M095 DPICM cluster munitions” used by Azerbaijan. Over 5,000 died and thousands were displaced by the time Azerbaijan and the Republic of Armenia signed a tripartite Russian-brokered ceasefire agreement on Nov. 9, 2020, ending the war in strong favor of Azerbaijan. Russia installed 1,960 peacekeeping forces in Artsakh, which failed to secure the Armenian population’s safety through the last hours of the exodus. 

“After the 2020 war, we lived under an information blockade. So, I decided I should speak up. The bloody war and the stories of all our suffering had to be told and published,” Sargsyan said.

Her mission to amplify the stories of those “still alive and struggling” brought her to a six-day training initiated by the AGBU Young Professionals of Madrid (Spain) and Ronak Press non-profit from Spain’s Basque Country, which convenes local journalists to cover war stories. Her first article covered the opening of a French cultural center in Artsakh, followed by “Female Faces of the Artsakh War” published in the Boston-based English language publication, The Armenian Weekly.

“I wanted to show the female face of the Artsakh war. Men are always portrayed as heroes. Surely many of our men lost their lives, but women suffered too. They took care of the children while enduring unbearable struggles. It’s no coincidence that most of my heroes happen to be women,” Sargsyan said.

Months after the 2020 war, walking the streets she imagined seeing the faces of those who had died. She remembers in tears the loss of her beloved uncle but gets most emotional detailing the death of her brother-in-law, a special forces soldier. His death dramatically impacted her “smart university graduate” sister, who had chosen to be a stay-at-home mom to “pamper her son and husband.” Their 20-year marriage ended on Nov. 7, 2020, two days before the ceasefire agreement, when Azerbaijani forces launched devastating attacks on the strategic Armenian fortress stronghold of Shushi—crowned atop mountains and home to the iconic Ghazanchetsots Cathedral which was damaged by two targeted missiles. 

“My sister refused to cross the border into Armenia from Shushi, because that’s the road where her husband’s blood spilled.”

Sargsyan says her 3-year-old nephew never questioned his father’s absence but obsessively watched the TV program that profiled martyred soldiers. “I wondered whether he understood that his father wasn’t coming back because we didn’t tell him he had died. He never asked for toys, but one day he asked me, ‘Can you ask them to show my father on TV?’”

Sargsyan said she felt most protected (despite Azerbaijan’s siege), and psychologically stronger while living in Artsakh. 

“Since my childhood, I’ve considered living in Artsakh as a special privilege because we have sacrificed a lot,” she said. “This is the high price we paid for living in our homeland. This is our choice. Our mountains, our culture, are part of our being. I exist within my land and soil. We sacrificed our blood to remain in our ancestral land where our spirits lie. Even to the last moments before our exodus—we hoped for a chance to live in our country. We won’t ever find another place as beautiful as Artsakh.

While she’s come to terms that Armenia is now her home, she feels weakened—she said she has “lost almost everything,” but is grateful for “the beautiful homeland which still exists and must be preserved.”

Sargsyan recalled seeing one of the village teachers at the border. The young, hardworking teacher had a large vineyard and had built a beautiful house she frequented. She was saddened to see all that he had now, was a tightly packed, small car—carrying his children, wife and elderly parents. 

“Their stories, every house, every person, every plot of land and mountain that made up our homeland of Artsakh is now strewn.” Sargsyan said the blockade felt like being imprisoned and the prospects of its lifting felt as impossible “as reaching another Galaxy”. 

Azerbaijan’s siege over Artsakh continued to the end, despite a February 2023 order by the International Court of Justice ordering Azerbaijan to end the blockade, echoed by countless international and humanitarian organizations.

In her dreams, Sargsyan said she sees herself “back in Artsakh.” Her compatriots share her sentiments—reliving in their minds their previous lives spent baking bread, harvesting their vineyards and gardens into wine and pickled vegetables, building their homes, and surviving Azerbaijan’s “agricultural terror” sharpshooters targeting farmers in their fields. Talking about the memories and the trauma, she said, has healing powers for her and the others, “as painful as it is.”

“With each day passing, I feel as though the anesthesia is wearing out and the pain is harder to bear.”

For Sargsyan and over 100,000 forcibly displaced Artsakh Armenians, the personal trauma of ethnic cleansing and war atrocities remains constant and the post-conflict psycho-social needs will only deepen in the future.

For now, the fertile, bomb-strewed vineyards and orchards, overshadowed by the Kirs peak nestled within the Artsakh mountain range, remain unharvested. The ancient monasteries’ bell towers are silenced for the first time as the winds of despair swirl through the mountain ranges and valleys and across ghost towns and villages empty of their indigenous residents who for centuries cultivated the land and endured harsh mountainous winters through wars. For the first time since 1967, the Tatik-Papik We Are Our Mountains monument, symbolizing Artsakh’s resilience, is endangered.

https://msmagazine.com/2023/10/22/war-siranush-sargsyan-azerbaijan-armenia/

The Boston Globe

Oct 22 2023