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After undergoing a number of complex surgeries, Hovhannes Poghosyan, an Artsakh soldier seriously wounded during the 2016 April war unleashed by Azerbaijan, visited today Yerablur Military Pantheon to pay tribute to his co-soldiers heroically fallen during the war.

“How to tell you, I cannot forget those days,” Hovhannes, who was accompanied by his mother, told reporters at the Pantheon, reports Panorama.am.

The soldier recalls that they heard the sounds of blasts at around 2 a.m. on April 2; in the morning they headed to the frontline positions where he sustained the injuries.

“Now I am feeling well, recovering gradually,” he says. 

To note, Hovhannes Poghosyan, born in 1995, received an injury in Talish, Artsakh, on 13 May 2016. He sustained a grave injury in the cerebrum, a brain fracture and other multiple shrapnel wounds. The serviceman was transferred to hospital in Martakert where he underwent a surgery. Afterwards he was transferred to hospital in Stepanakert and later on to Yerevan.

Hovhannes was in a coma for a long time and only 36 days later was he transferred from the intensive care unit to the ward. He received a hospital treatment for 105 days. Doctors stated that Hovhannes’s chances for recovery were poor.

Azerbaijan unleashed a large-scale offensive along the Artsakh-Azerbaijan Line of Contact at night of April 1 to April 2, 2016. The clashes, traditionally dubbed as “the Four-Day War”, continued until April 5, with the fierce battles occurring in the south (Hadrut) and south-east (Martakert) directions of the contact line. The adversary used heavy artillery, armored equipment and aerial vehicles to infiltrate deep into the defensive lines of the Artsakh Defense Army and occupy tactical positions.

The Azerbaijani forces, in the course of their recent large-scale military offensive, intentionally targeted civilian infrastructures and civilian population, including children and the elderly. The Azerbaijani military beheaded three Armenian servicemen in ISIS style.

Those barbaric acts go beyond elementary norms of civilized world, constituting violations of core international conventions.