French Medical Mission Publishes Report on Ballistic Nerve Injuries from 2020 Artsakh War

Seven medical missions were completed in Yerevan between January 2021 and May 2022 and directed towards the management of wounded veterans. Complex injuries were managed, included bone, soft-tissue, orthopedic, and peripheral nerve injuries.

According to lead author, Dr. Olivier Fantino, the severity of injuries, COVID and the psychological impact of Armenia’s military loss made the situation very difficult. “The psychological state of the wounded was most often at the lowest, often with advanced states of prostration. Conversely, some coped in an astonishing way,” he wrote.

The report detailed the management of 25 wounded soldiers with peripheral nerve injuries in the setting of soft-tissue polytrauma.

Veterans were treated at the Wigmore Clinic in Yerevan. Of the 25, a total of 44 injured nerves were documented, including 17 patients with upper limb nerve injury, 7 with lower limb nerve injury, and one patient with both upper and lower nerve injury. Fourteen wounded veterans had wounds inflicted by shrapnel, 10 by high-velocity bullets, and one with nerve injury inflicted by prolonged compression with a hemorrhage-control tourniquet.

The indiscriminate use of drone, ballistic and explosive agents by the Azeri military during the war is widely documented, including the use of prohibited white phosphorus explosives on the population of Artsakh.

“The degree of complex soft tissue injuries inflicted on the civilian and military population of Artsakh overwhelmed the acute management of those wounded on the field,” said Igor Zakharyan, chief of plastic surgery at Central Republic Hospital in Stepanakert (before 2023). “We are still dealing with the manifestations of those injuries years later.”