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Members and supporters of the opposition Consolidation initiative staged a protest outside the Armenian government building in central Yerevan on Monday, blaming the Armenian authorities for last week’s deadly military barracks fire.

The protesters observed a minute’s silence to pay tribute to the 15 servicemen who were killed in the fire that broke out in the barracks of an engineer and sapper company in a military unit in Azat, a village in Armenia's eastern Gegharkunik Province, on Thursday.

They held posters reading, "There’s no future without army", "Your DNA is to blame", "The army is our backbone", as well as photos of the 15 killed servicemen.

Addressing the audience in Aragatsotn Province on Saturday, Pashinyan noted. "Some repercussion of the events show that we need to go deeper and understand the problems in their depth, in addition to the superficial problems. And the problems are actually not the ones that appear on the surface, but those that are expressed in various spheres, they are, so to speak, DNA level problems. These problems often arise from the lack of willpower to break out of the logic of “patching” the problems."

“We believe that de-facto Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and Defense Minister Suren Papikyan are to blame for this tragedy,” YSU lecturer and co-founder of the 5165 Movement Menuh Soghomonyan said at the protest.

He cited Article 155 of the Constitution which says the Armenian armed forces are under the government’s subordination.

“Thus, the government, particularly its leader is responsible for such a big failure in the military,” the oppositionist stressed.