By Nane Sahakian
YEREVAN (RFE/RL) — Refugees from Nagorno-Karabakh (Artsakh) again rallied outside the main government building in Yerevan on Tuesday, October 12, to accuse the Armenian authorities of neglecting their grave socioeconomic problems.
The nearly 100 protesters are former residents of Karabakh’s southern Hadrut district occupied by Azerbaijani forces during last year war.
More than 10,000 Armenians lived in the district before the outbreak of the six-war in September 2020. Virtually all of them fled their homes, taking refuge in Armenia as well as other parts of Karabakh.
The Artsakh authorities have provided some Hadrut refugees with temporary accommodation and pledged to resettle others since a Russian-brokered ceasefire stopped the hostilities last November.
The majority of those refugees remain in Armenia where they rent cheap apartments, huddle in temporary shelters or live with their local relatives. The Armenian government for months supported them with monthly cash handouts meant to cover their accommodation expenses.
