Armenian Mother Shot by Azeri Soldier: ‘Nowhere is Safe’
By Alison Tahmizian Meuse
Special to the Mirror-Spectator
YEREVAN — Down the corridor from the entrance of Yerevan’s Saint Gregory the Illuminator Medical Center is a small chapel, where guests and staff alike may stop for a moment of prayer, to light a candle, or simply pause for a moment of calm and solace.
“She is a hero for us,” said a nurse at the door.
She was speaking of the hospital’s most famous patient, Ani Avetisyan.
Avetisyan, on October 1, armed with only a kitchen knife, confronted an Azerbaijani soldier who had broken into their house in the southern province of Syunik and was holding her children at gunpoint.
The soldier shot her through the hand when she put it between his gun and one of her children, and then he shot her in the knee after she attacked him with the knife.
Today, Ani has no left kneecap, which shattered from the bullet. The nerves from the left knee to the ankle are wrecked. She was taken initially to a hospital in Sisian and then transferred to Yerevan.
“I’m in pain,” she told the Mirror-Spectator from her hospital bed on Monday, October 19.
She will require a major surgery to insert a prosthetic kneecap and connect the bones that remain.
It will take a year of recovery and physical therapy before she may walk again, the doctors have told her.
She has not only her children, but the state of the country and its security now on her mind.
Never Going Back
Avetisyan’s daughter and son had been the first to come home after school, where they found a strange man with a gun in their home.
It was not just any stranger, but an Azerbaijani soldier named Nasimi Musayev, who had managed to cross with his rifle — undetected for days — to the median point of the country, more than 12 miles from the border, and into their home.
The daughter managed to call Avetisyan before the soldier took the phone away, and she rushed over from the neighboring city of Sisian.
Though she placed a call to the police, the mother of two beat them to the house.
With only a knife she managed to grab, and her own body and will, she was able to defend her children.
The soldier’s first shot missed. The second went through Avetisyan’s hand, which she put in front of the barrel of the gun that he had aimed at her son, 15.
She was able to stab the soldier with the knife, and managed to push the gun down when he aimed it at her chest, so he shot her knee instead.
When he went to reload, her son was able to hit him hard enough to send him running away.
“Everyone needs to be like this,” she responded solemnly, when told she had protected not only her family, but the country, with her courage.
But she has ruled out going home.
“I can never return to Shaki. I will always relive what happened,” she told the Mirror-Spectator, when asked if she would go back once she has recovered from her surgeries.
And above all, she does not want to retraumatize her children.
“When the children hear the word ‘Shaki’ they cry,” she said.
Instead, she will look for a suitable place to live on the outer limits of Yerevan, closest to her doctors and to safety.
“But now, I think nowhere in Armenia is safe,” she said.
Better to Alert
In the wake of the attack, Armenia’s National Security Service said it had received advance notice on September 29 from Azerbaijani counterparts that a serviceman had left his post in Lachin and could be in Armenia.
Speaker of Parliament Ruben Rubinyan justified the concealment of that information from the public, positing that “residents might accidentally shoot at each other” were they notified.
He conceded, however, that implementing an alert protocol could be up for consideration.
Such a protocol may have protected Avetisyan and her children.
It is already too late for Hayrapet Meliksetyan, the 52-year-old security guard of the Zangezur Copper Molybdenum Combine, who in April 2023 was murdered by one of two Azerbaijani soldiers who had infiltrated Armenia’s southern province of Syunik.
Avetisyan told the Mirror-Spectator on Monday, October 19, that she would prefer a warning in all cases.
“It is better to alert people, though they will panic, as they will know how to proceed,” she said.
Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and senior members of his cabinet have sought to downplay the severity of the incident, with the premier going so far as to blame Avetisyan for acting on “maternal instinct.”
Had she waited for the police, “nothing would have happened,” he claimed.
A Folk Hero
In the vacuum of state acknowledgement of her courage, Armenian civil society has sought to recognize Avetisyan as a heroine.
On the table at the foot of her bed was a collection of these gestures.
There were bouquets of flowers, the Armenian novel The Priestess of Destiny, and a personalized mug with an elegant photo of Avetisyan on it.
There were crosses and prayer cards following a visit by Armenian Apostolic Church clergy, led by Father Davit Gishyan, pastor of Sisian.
There were framed certificates of recognition and medals from civil society organizations.
And, in a humorous touch, there was a nutcracker, with two walnuts — an apparent allusion to her strength against the male attacker.
When asked what kind of support she is in need of as she embarks on her long road to recovery, Avetisyan responds: “A house.”
