Nagorno-Karabakh has been closed to the press for almost three years. Since the Azerbaijan offensive, we only know what is happening there when we can reach someone there. The city of Stepanakert is still surrounded by Azerbaijani soldiers. For the region’s residents who are now outside the enclave and in Armenia, the future remains up in the air. But it appears dark.
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From our special correspondent in Goris, Armenia,
Eyes reddened by sleepless nights, Ashot barely touches his lunch in a hotel in Goris. For this resident of Stepanakert, who has lived there since the summer, the last nine months have been a blur, almost a black hole.
“ I have been outside Nagorno-Karabakh for nine months, he confides. I was leaving for a wedding in Russia, then my family called me and told me that the corridor back from Armenia was under blockade. »
I stayed in Russia for a bit, waited, waited… And then I realized that the situation was getting worse and worse. So I came back here. My whole family is there.
“ In nine months, continues Ashot, a lot has changed: I became a grandfather, and I still haven’t seen this baby. I’m going crazy, I’m constantly looking at my phone, I’m constantly watching the news. »
A deminer in an NGO, Ashot says he wants more than anything to return to Nagorno-Karabakh, to see his family again. However, he still has difficulty considering living under Azerbaijani sovereignty.
A dilemma, in many heads, but not in that of Karina Sarkisdjanyan. This former soldier in the Nagorno-Karabakh army for fifteen years does not believe in any security guarantee given by Baku.
It’s a lie, a lie! Look, today they don’t even let us evacuate our dead, not even our young ones.
A seamstress in Goris since the end of the 2020 war, Karina says she is tired of fleeing violence. The separatists have given a toll of 200 dead, 400 injured, and the Lachin corridor is still blocked.
At 53, she who had already left Azerbaijan 25 years ago says today she wants to stop fleeing.
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