“The first shot was at 12:05. After the first hit, we realized that something was wrong, then the continuous shelling started,” Sevak Khachatryan, the administrative head of the Sotk settlement, remembers the night of September 12-13. As a result of direct fire by the Armed Forces of Azerbaijan in Sotk, citizens’ houses, adjacent structures, and the building of the community hall were damaged. He says that after that the residents who had cars left the village, then they came and moved the rest. And at about 4 PM, the majority of residents had evacuated. Sevak Khachatryan mentioned that at the moment women and children are not in the village yet, but men come, feed their cows, and leave. “The majority is already returning. At the moment, we have families who stay in the village at night.”
Sevak Khachatryan reported that the village has three wounded people, one of them is in serious condition. He was injured during evacuation. And as for the Armenian positions, he answered, “According to my information, they have not come forward in our direction. We are in the same position, they are in the same position.” In the last two days, Sevak Khachatryan did not hear the sound of shots in the village, nor did he notice an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV). There is no electricity in the village at the moment, he expressed hope that the electricity restoration works will start in the village from tomorrow. “The most important thing is that the residents have a desire to return to the village and live here. That is the most important thing at the moment.”
The residents of the village told the journalists that most of them have no place to stay and spend the night on the streets or in cars. Sevak Khachatryan commented like this. “We have offered everyone an area where they can stay, it can be in Martuni, it is far away, they don’t want to go because the cattle are here. And in Vardenis, we could not accommodate everyone. But we have places in Martuni, Yerevan.” And to the question, how long is it safe to spend the night in the village? “If we are talking about Turks, there is no guarantee. But also our guarantee is that we have to live here because our soldiers stand behind us. If we don’t live in Sotk, why are our boys there?”
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Ami CHICHAKYAN
