VARDENIS, Armenia — In a number of villages of the Vardenis region, which in 2020 after the war, ended up on the border with Azerbaijan, human rights are being openly violated in the most crude way. This primarily concerns the villages of Kut, Azat, Norabak and Sotk. From these villages, the military strongholds of the Azerbaijanis who invade the sovereign territory of Armenia and the movement of their armed forces and military equipment are clearly visible. Some conversations of members of the Azerbaijani armed groups can be clearly heard in the villages, while the sounds of their shooting cause alarm among the people.
The distance from the Azerbaijani strongholds to the aforementioned villages is 500-2000 meters, which means that the schools and in general all the children of the village are targets.
“I do not believe in the humanitarian policy of the world. I think it is false, because you see what is happening here. Children are directly targeted. Schools are directly targeted. Azerbaijanis shoot at the walls and windows of people’s houses, but the world is silent – that is, we are alone with our problems,” said Hakob Avetyan, the former head of the enlarged Geghamasar community.
In his opinion, the only salvation is to arm, to have a strong army and to solve the existing problems with one’s own forces.
“We must expel the Azerbaijanis from here, expel them as we did in the 1990s,” he added.
Harutyun, a resident of the village, who was also forcibly displaced (from northern Artsakh in 1988), thinks that the authorities of the day are not capable of solving the matter.
