Nushik Melkonyan, the director of the Armenian-Swedish Benevolent Foundation Nuños, called www.aravot.am after the article Girls of a Children’s Home Are Taken to Turkey had been published, and said that the inmates of the Gavar children’s home had been taken to Western Armenia with the support of the organization and at the invitation of the Constantinople Patriarchy.
Ms. Melkonyan claims that the concerns that the children are taken to Turkey for other purposes are groundless. She assured that no child would cross the border without a passport, since the Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs of the Republic of Armenia had promised to solve the problem with passports. “Anush Badalyan from the Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs, the deputy director on educational issues, the choirmaster and the social worker from the Gavar children’s home will come with us,” she informed. Then added, “I will also go to see which child eats what, who has a stomachache, how they swim in Marmara or how they sing and dance. Let them see our ancestors’ land to feel the pain of the loss.”
Gohar HAKOBYAN
