Your trusted source

Gohar Hovyan, a refugee woman from Martakert, was injured immediately after Azerbaijan’s massive attack on Artsakh on September 19. Her 16-year-old son, Serozhik, was killed in Azerbaijani shelling.

“We heard the sounds of shooting. We went outside and realized that a war had broken out,” she recalls in a video shared by ex-Armenian Ombudsman Arman Tatoyan, who currently runs the Tatoyan Foundation.

“There was an explosion. My hands were bleeding and swollen. My husband screamed, “Gohar, Serozhik!” He is my eldest son. My younger son was standing, but bleeding, my eldest son was on the ground. They took us to the hospital in Stepanakert. I could see my eldest son, and doctors were trying to save him. Then I saw that they turned off all the equipment. I just screamed and begged them to save my son.”

“I got scared in the beginning, but I thought we would be able to get out like we did in 2020, but we couldn’t,” says Gohar’s younger son. “When the grad [MLRS] fell, I stood up and saw everything was broken and in the dust, the floor and the ceiling were broken.”

Arman Tatoyan states that the Azerbaijani military targeted large communities in Artsakh during its offensive, including Askeran, Martuni, Martakert and Stepanakert, in an effort to cut them off from each other and create chaos.