“I demand my father.” Children were carrying posters with this and similar quotes written on them. The mother of a soldier missing in action said that it has been 113 days since she heard from her son. She met with members of government, but nothing has been resolved.
“We want the ECHR and Red Cross to officially confirm and present information that our prisoners of war will return. They are not confirming this information because they believe that all the information is not correct. We provided them with information on disks and other resources. We are the ones doing everything; the state is doing nothing. Every second spent as a captive is indescribable for our children,” the parents said.
Arsen Ghukasyan, who was in Artsakh trying to search for his relative’s body, said that there were small incidents, but they will do what they need to. He did not specify what he meant. He said that the Ministry of Defense recently sent a list to Artsakh, which is the list that Ghukasyan asked for; if there are officers who have information on where certain incidents took place, where certain people died, and who know specific locations, they should gather this information and send it to the ministry. “The Ministry of Defense sent the list to Artsakh two days ago, but it is too late. Four bodies were found in the Fizuli region. The search parties always face obstacles for different reasons every time. We ask them, and they don’t do anything. We went and found officers in different military bases, and we found soldiers who would give us information. But we understand that there are few bodies left.”
According to Arsen Ghukasyan, the search efforts have taken far too long. “We aren’t constantly mentioning their inability to work for nothing. On November 23rd, Harut Karakhanyan called and said that there are soldiers in this one location. After the war, the soldiers called, they were able to get a connection, and gave their location. They asked for help, but there was no help. Around 30 of those soldiers’ bodies were brought back to us with fresh wounds. They had chains around their necks. If these authorities, including the Ministry of Defense and the Defense Army, were able to do something, those children would have been home safe by now. The soldier called and said, ‘Uncle, we are surrounded,’ and he gave his exact location. Why didn’t those soldiers get help?”
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Nelly Babayan
