Your trusted source

Armenia’s Human Rights Defender (Ombudsman) Arman Tatoyan has shared a photo of villager Gevorg Avagyan’s house, showing an Azerbaijani post on the mountain close to it.

“The house in the picture below belongs to the family of Gevorg Avagyan, a resident of Chakaten village; the watchtower of Azerbaijani servicemen is located directly above it, on the mountain. He has been deprived of his family income and continues to suffer great losses due to Azerbaijani criminal acts,” he wrote on Facebook on Monday.

During their visit to Chakaten village of Syunik Province on Monday, the ombudsman’s staff discovered that 5 to 6 years ago, 3 families built a 2 km long pipeline from a water source near the village with great difficulty, spending more than 2 million drams in the process. However, the Azerbaijani servicemen cut off the water supply for these families after their deployment in the areas without any legal ground. Currently the families have to use a different water source in the village, which is a significant issue, since the water sources are scarce and not enough to satisfy the needs of the residents.

Moreover, Gevorg Avagyan works as a taxi driver in Kapan, which is the source of income of his family. As a result of the blatantly unlawful Azerbaijani border and customs control on the Kapan-Chakaten road, it is very difficult and long to reach the town. Thus, he has been deprived of the opportunity to earn a living.

“This family has also been deprived of their opportunity to use their pastures, since the Azerbaijani troops are stationed on those lands,” Tatoyan said.

“The facts clearly prove that the deployment of Azerbaijani forces, their further fortifications in the immediate vicinity of Armenian villages and on the roads linking the communities have no legal basis. Their actions are criminal in nature, as they intentionally aggravate human rights violations, and disrupt the normal life of people. As result, the population of Armenia, especially those living in the border communities, are facing bigger humanitarian crises,” he stated.