There are shootings in the direction of the Sotk community of Gegharkunik Region almost every day, and today they were intense. Kolik Shahsuvaryan, the former village head of Sotk, said this in an interview with “Aravot.”
According to him, there is no panic among the community’s residents. “We hear shots fired at our positions almost every day, they are the ones who provoke us, and ours also respond.”
Just today (he means May 11), it was intense and so fierce that we had four wounded. Sotk is the last village; we are the closest to Azerbaijani positions. Most of the shootings are due to the Sotk mine in that area. Ours are working; they are interfering, obstructing the work of the mine, and shooting directly at the workers. Recently, the mine has not been working; there were negotiations, the governor came and intervened, and our military came to talk to them to make the mine work, but it still didn’t work; Turks are like that. Now their main goal is to stop the mine from working,” said Shahsuvaryan. According to the former head of the village, early this morning, the Azerbaijani troops opened fire with artillery and mortars, mainly in the direction of the gold mine.
“We have a border there; the top of the mountain is our border, Turks on that side, Armenians on this side. There are shootings almost every day, and the Turks do not let our ՛՛mood deteriorate՛՛; they shoot every day. Our people are not panicking. They are not running away; they are sitting in their place. Several families left a few months ago when there was serious shelling, but spring work has already started, and everyone in the community is busy with their work.
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As they say, we are still vigilant. God forbid, if the Turk suddenly descends from that mountain, it will be more difficult to deal with, be it our village or the neighboring villages. There are heights from the right and left; they are on the main heights, their position is better, the danger is always there,” he added.
Turning to the question of what solutions they see in the current situation, Shahsuvaryan said: “Specifically, we do what we have to do, we stay where we are, we are not in a panic, we are just paying attention all day long in case something suddenly happens, we resist. People are not leaving the village, but it will slowly be emptied if this continues. One person a month, five people a year will slowly leave; it’s bad in that regard,” he said.
Roza HOVHANNISYAN
