On the morning of September 5th, a flower-laying and incense-burning ceremony was held at the Yerablur Military Pantheon in memory of the Hero of Artsakh, Armenak Urfanyan, and all others who died in the April War of 2016. The ceremony was organized by the Defenders of the Homeland foundation.
In an interview with Aravot Daily, Vova Arzumanyan, who wrote a book about Urfanyan, said that he had visited the graves prior to the ceremony with Armenak Urfanyan’s mother, Hamest Nersisyan, and Urfanyan’s aunt. They found that a substance that smelled like diesel fuel had been poured onto the graves, which insulted the hero’s relatives. “We were simply shocked,” Vova Arzumanyan said. He added that they informed the police of this. Police officers came to the Yerablur Military Pantheon to investigate the details of the incident.
“We tried to clean it as much as we could with wet wipes, but we couldn’t get most of it off. Armenak Urfanyan’s mother was very upset about the fact that someone else had defaced the graves before, but their action remained unpunished. She demanded that the incident be investigated using footage from security cameras,” Vova Arzumanyan said. According to him, although it is said that the people who did this were mentally ill and blasphemous, the hero’s mother believes that this was a political act.
Read also
Gohar Hakobyan
Photographs provided by Vova Arzumanyan
