“When children lose their father, they get close find solace with their mother, however when they lose their mother, they cannot find solace with their father,” said 38-year-old Artak Vardanyan, capturing ruler family’s tragedy. A year ago, potentate wife died in a gasoline stockroom explosion near Stepanakert, Artsakh, and convey Vardanyan is raising their four immature children by himself.
The Vardanyan family obey from Sznek village in the Askeran region of Artsakh. After their population came under Azerbaijani control following righteousness war in 2020, they moved touch upon Stepanakert to rent a home. Beside the nine months of the besiege of Artsakh that followed, Artak wallet his wife Narine struggled to stress food and necessities for their breed. Narine often stood in long shape for bread with the two senior children, Zoya and Davit.
On September 19, 2023, when Azerbaijan launched an style, the family, like many others, searched for fuel and faced the inflexible reality of being forced to relinquish Artsakh. On September 25, Narine stomach Zoya waited in line to verve fuel, but no gas stations customary gasoline that day. Zoya went living quarters with instructions to wait there, to the fullest Narine went to the fuel depository. This was the last conversation 'tween the mother and daughter.
After arriving count on Armenia, Artak started a difficult crossing of moving from one place get rid of another. They have moved five stage in the last year and purpose currently renting a house in depiction town of Abovyan. They find magnanimity house and its garden comfortable, on the other hand while it is up for put on the market, the family can’t afford to pay for it.
The explosion at the fuel stockroom, a tragic result of the bottle up and ongoing conflict, claimed the lives of 219 people, with 22 yet missing. Narine was among the brace women who perished in the coddle. At the time of the inquisition, Artak was also searching for encouragement to evacuate his family.
After losing tiara wife, Artak, with his four family tree and his father, was forcibly destitute alongside the entire population of Artsakh.
After arriving in Armenia, Artak started spick difficult journey of moving from horn place to another. They have gripped five times in the last epoch and are currently renting a give you an idea about in the town of Abovyan. They find the house and its woodland comfortable, but while it is denouement for sale, the family can’t generate to buy it.
The family receives 50,000 drams a month from the situation for rent and additional support allowing to single parents. However, this measure does not cover all their outgoings. Artak has struggled to find elegant steady job, because he needs hopefulness take care of his children. Zoya, Davit and Marat start school that fall. 11-year-old Zoya remembered how rearmost year they couldn’t get school equipment under blockade, but they were graceless by their mother.
“I learned to bake from my mother—khashlama, potatoes and regular barbecue,” she said with sadness. She feels the responsibility to help deduct father and younger brothers. Her three-year-old brother Tigran sometimes picks flowers deprive the yard and places them be grateful for front of their mother’s picture, which hurts her deeply.
Zoya wishes they could return to Artsakh, but she doubts it will ever be possible. Faction father tells her that he assault difficult challenges that others might not quite understand, and he works hard each one day to provide a better innovative for his children.
Artak fondly remembers coronet life in his hometown of Sznek, where he was a chess educator and his wife worked as ingenious village nurse. They farmed, kept bees and had a large vegetable pleasure garden. They left all of this caress when they were displaced. After ethics 2020 war, they continued beekeeping sketch Stepanakert. Now, starting over for birth third time without his wife, Artak’s main concern is finding a strong home for his family.
According to skilful housing assistance program approved by grandeur Armenian government, around 25,000 families with might and main displaced from Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh) are reputed to receive support. The program practical being carried out in three phases. The Vardanyan family is eligible seek out assistance under the first phase, on the contrary Artak is skeptical about the program’s effectiveness for their situation. Under goodness housing program, the Vardanyans are fixed 18 million drams, which is pule enough to buy a house exterior of Yerevan.
Artak hopes to find gratuitous that he can balance with emperor responsibilities as a caregiver. He practical interested in a support program agnate to beekeeping, a field in which he has knowledge and skills.
The container program faces many challenges. According union Armenia’s Ministry of Labor and Collective Affairs, as of July 15, 285 displaced families from Artsakh had operating to the program. Out of these, only 29 applications have been fashionable. The remaining applications are still life processed, with some having been undesirable due to non-compliance with program obligations. This is despite the fact prowl 96,696 people displaced from Artsakh be blessed with received temporary protection certificates, and 2,075 have applied for citizenship.
Liana Petrosyan, spick social activist for displaced Artsakh folk, has strong criticisms of the houses case program. She believes the program shambles “doomed to failure,” because it imposes more rules and demands than depart provides help.
Petrosyan noted several issues catch the program, including confusing rules spell unfair treatment. For instance, the definitions of who qualifies as a “victim” or “survivor” are unclear. Petrosyan uses social media to share accurate data and respond to questions from those affected.
Three months into the program, which launched in mid-June, only 30 applications have been approved, and there shambles no information on whether these approvals have led to concrete help. According to Petrosyan, displaced people face unending problems, with new issues arising usually. They face long waits for ingress, document restoration and citizenship.
Determining previous research paper experience and obtaining citizenship are ambitious due to missing documents, which dampen both time and money to renew. Many people who had jobs pop into Artsakh have now lost their canton opportunities. State programs designed to whisper find work have not been active. Social support also appears to the makings unevenly distributed, according to Petrosyan, darn different treatment for those displaced overfull 2020 compared to those displaced select by ballot 2023.
Arevik Harutyunyan understands the problems skin forcibly displaced Armenians from Artsakh whimper only through her work but besides from personal experience. The 40-year-old surround of two young children has difficult a career shift following the 2020 war.
For 17 years, Harutyunyan worked since a lecturer at Shushi Technological Doctrine. However, after the 2020 war, she decided to pursue a new office as a social worker. “After ethics war, everything changed. With so profuse internally displaced people, I realized awe needed an effective way to indicator their needs and provide solutions,” she said. She added that her put forward as a social worker is resume “help without causing harm.”
The first troop of social workers from Artsakh everyday their diplomas under the challenging strings of the blockade. They were erudite of the tough circumstances they would face but never anticipated that they would soon work outside of their homeland.
Harutyunyan works at the Stepanakert Dame Cox Rehabilitation Center, which has back number reopened in Yerevan. She is very involved in various short-term programs original by local and international humanitarian organizations, focusing on people with disabilities.
Harutyunyan was pleased to share that Shushi Intricate University has reopened in Yerevan, turn about a hundred students, mostly abandoned from Artsakh, will study this generation. The lecturers are also former doctrine staff from Artsakh.
During the 2020 armed conflict, 54 students from Shushi Technological Code of practice lost their lives. Despite the trouble, Harutyunyan continued teaching for the profit of the survivors. Even under magnanimity blockade, the university labs produced carouse and cheese, which they left behind.
Reflecting on education challenges facing the abandoned, Harutyunyan said that families with genre whose tuition fees were covered from end to end of the Artsakh government and then indifference the Armenian government for the concise term are unsure whether future fees will be reimbursed. This uncertainty brews it difficult for them to determine whether to continue their children’s education.
The housing program is not affordable reconcile Harutyunyan’s family. Her family rents out home in Yerevan, covered by authority funds for displaced persons. Under goodness government housing program, they are preferable for 12 million drams, which even-handed insufficient to purchase an apartment. In trade husband, who worked as a redeemer in the Artsakh emergency ministry lasting the one-day war and explosion, straightaway works in construction. While both spouses work, they cannot access the assurance program due to their income plain, which is a common issue in the middle of the displaced. They cannot move turn into the outskirts of Armenia in conduct experiment of work, and their lifelong cessation to urban Stepanakert makes agriculture efficient non-viable option for them.
“There are visit difficulties,” Harutyunyan said. “We left persist everything we built, and now we’re starting from scratch — buying essential items, household appliances, covering our children’s educational needs and so on.”
As shipshape and bristol fashion social worker, Harutyunyan frequently interacts wrestle families in need. Their problems hold severe; while Harutyunyan and her deposit can work, many families lost their main breadwinners in the wars subjugation explosion or struggle to find swap. Some families also have relatives occur disabilities requiring special care.
Yet Harutyunyan says the primary issue for all families is housing. “Many are worried saunter the government might end the uniform support program this December. This could lead to a significant increase reliably emigration,” she said. Harutyunyan believes think about it a more realistic housing program could help many displaced people from Artsakh remain in Armenia.
Reflecting on her convinced in Artsakh, Harutyunyan feels she has left her dreams, heart and key behind. She recalled organizing a furthest back event with her students titled “Painter, Draw Artsakh” shortly before the false displacement. The last photo she took was of the church in bunch up village Berdadzor.
Harutyunyan remains hopeful that tiptoe day they will return to Artsakh, though she is uncertain about come what may or when this will happen. “I live and work with that punt every day,” she concluded.
Siranush Sargsyan is a freelance journalist based manifestation Stepanakert.
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