The border village of Khramort, Askeran is surrounded like an island.
Although authorities are encouraging residents to return to their homes, the residents do not feel safe in the village.
A teacher from the Khramort village, Armine Mirzoyan, reached Dilijan with her sister’s family and her two children during the war after traveling a long way.
Armine’s family was able to clearly watch the war taking place on September 27th from their backyard.
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“My husband was sleeping. I went and told him that war broke out. We are able to clearly see Aghdam from our village, and so, we were able to see the smoke and fire from Aghdam,” Armine said.
After a few hours, the residents of the village were evacuated since the enemy was very close.
“We couldn’t imagine that it would have been a war like this. We always thought that we would fight with guns, but this was a different type of war. They were bombing us from the air,” the teacher said.
Armine, after gathering only the most important documents, left the village with her children and fellow villagers, but her husband went to the battlefield.
“When I was a child during the first Artsakh war, I remember that my parents would always say that we needed to take only the most important documentation from our house, but we will find the other things later. I got on a bus with around 20 people from the village. We initially went to Sevan where we stayed for two days. Then, we went to Yerevan. We stayed in Yerevan for a month, and then they brought us to Dilijan. My husband went to the battlefield on the very first day and stayed there for more than 50 days.”
Despite the fact that the Khramort village remained within Artsakh’s boundaries in accordance with the trilateral agreement signed on November 10th, the neighboring territories were captured and the village is surrounded like an island.
According to Armine, the authorities are encouraging people to return, but the family no longer feels safe. But if they don’t return, they have nowhere to stay in Armenia.
“The enemy entered our neighboring village and beat residents. But now, they’re telling us to return to our village. I don’t feel safe there. I don’t want my children to live there, either. If my husband goes to the frontlines and the enemy comes to our house, what are we supposed to do? I don’t have anywhere to go, either, so I can’t just stay here. I am a teacher at the school and they are asking me to return. If I had the opportunity, I wouldn’t return, but they’re telling me that my house is still there, so I can go back. If I received a house in a village in Armenia, I wouldn’t return, but I don’t have anywhere to stay so I’m forced to go back.”
Armine said that the home in the village does not even belong to her family, and it was given to them based on the condition that she teach at the school. Armine believes that, even with the Russian peacekeepers, there is no guarantee that they will be safe.
At the moment, the family is preparing to return to the village with the hope that they will soon find an alternative.
Satenik Hovsepyan
