Sofia Hovsepyan, a former deputy of the National Assembly, spoke to “Aravot” about the death of 2 minor children in Aghabekalanj village, Martakert region of Artsakh. A criminal case was initiated in this case, and there is information that the mother left the two minor children at home and left on foot to Martakert to bring them food.
“An investigation is underway; it is not yet clear what the reason was. But the fact that such incidents can happen every day is inevitable if Artsakh continues to remain in these conditions. It’s a complicated situation; there is a problem of movement. To find something, people have to walk for kilometers so that they don’t go hungry. There is no inter-city, inter-district transport. In just 15 days, they reduced another 50 percent of the transport, be sure that if this continues, after some time, even that 50 percent reduced transport will not exist,” said Sofya Hovsepyan.
According to her, this situation is primarily on the conscience of those responsible; it is a consequence of the indifference of the Armenian people. “And those responsible are the authorities of the Republic of Armenia, the authorities of Azerbaijan, the Russian Federation, all international structures, which endlessly talk about children’s and human rights. That is a consequence of the indifference of the Armenian people. It must be a tragic incident, write a couple of sad statuses on Facebook and be done with it. If you were careful, they ignored this case. If, let’s suppose there was a case of violence by the father, you would see how many human rights organizations would hastily write and lament. But, they did not consider it necessary to address this incident; they did not consider it necessary to speak up, take advantage of the situation, and inform their international partner organizations about this tragic incident.
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“They are not interested in what the child of Artsakh dies from, or lives or not,” she added. According to Sofia Hovsepyan, there has been a food shortage in Artsakh since December last year. “People stood in line for food for hours and left empty-handed. In other words, it is not new in Artsakh. And at the moment, in big cities, where agriculture is not particularly developed, we are talking about a total deficit of vegetables. Vegetables do not reach the city of Stepanakert.
Now they are creating an opportunity to deliver certain natural products to Stepanakert using inter-district service vehicles. But how much the citizens can bring food to other communities to meet the demand of Stepanakert is a question. In other words, it does not change the weather; it is necessary to specifically organize the supply of certain natural products from the villages to the city of Stepanakert. And these queues have always existed; it is painful when you see a young child standing in line for hours for his daily bread and not getting his turn,” she said.
Roza HOVHANNISYAN
