On this frosty winter morning, fog hides the snow-capped peaks of Mount Ararat, usually visible several hundred kilometers away. Dozens of refugees from Nagorno-Karabakh line up in the melted snow which turns to slush, in front of the Masis music school, 20 kilometers south of the capital Yerevan. This building straight out of the Soviet era is requisitioned by volunteers from the Ugab (Armenian General Benevolent Union) who distribute basic aid: boxes of pasta, sugar, condensed milk, blankets, and sometimes baby diapers.
In sub-zero temperatures, fur caps and hats screwed onto heads, refugees of all ages still seem bloodless, five months after being forced to abandon their ancestral land. Their sunken faces bear witness to the near-starvation they survived during the nine-month blockade by Azerbaijani authorities, preventing any supplies from reaching Nagorno-Karabakh from late 2022 to fall 2023.
From September 25, 100,000 inhabitants of Nagorno-Karabakh, an enclave which was mainly populated by Armenians, fled to Armenia after violent bombings by the Azerbaijani army. Leaving overnight after their self-proclaimed government surrendered, the “Artsakhtis” – as they are called in Armenia – came with nothing, having barely had time to take a suitcase of clothes or their meager savings. Almost 12,000 of them have settled in Masis, capital of the Ararat region, and in its rural surroundings.
© / Dario Ingiusto / L’Express
For Armenia, a country in the Caucasus populated by less than 3 million souls, welcoming them represents a considerable challenge. “The government cannot cover the needs of these refugees alone. This is why it created a consortium of humanitarian organizations, whose actions it coordinates,” explains Inessa Margaryan, director of humanitarian projects at Ugab Armenia .
Cost of living and employment crisis
Registered upon their arrival in a national database, the refugees were distributed by the authorities across the 11 Armenian regions – 30% found themselves in Yerevan and its surroundings. Although almost everyone has found accommodation, integration still remains difficult. “We can’t find work anywhere here,” says Sego Harutunyan, 22, a former soldier from the enclave. The young soldier, who displays the emblematic monument of Nagorno-Karabakh in the wallpaper of his phone – a sculpture in red tuff representing the stylized faces of a grandmother and grandfather – fled on the 27th. September with his two brothers and his parents, with whom he now shares an apartment in the Ararat region. He is soon thinking of leaving for Russia to work, as thousands of Artsakhtis have already done.
“Armenia is suffering a housing crisis, with exploding property prices and a high unemployment rate,” summarizes Benyamin Poghosyan, geopolitical analyst at the APRI think tank, based in Yerevan. To help them, the government allocated 100,000 drams (230 euros) to each of the new arrivals, as well as monthly housing assistance of 50,000 drams (115 euros) for six months. But this aid alone remains insufficient in the face of inflation. “And payments often arrive late, sometimes by several months,” says Sego Harutunyan, the former soldier.
Varujan, 52, received all the state aid to which he was entitled. With his wife, he set up his grocery store in Masis, where he sells the famous Jingalov Hats, bread filled with herbs and garlic, specialty of Nagorno-Karabakh. At her table, Nona, in her forties, originally from Shosh, reveals with disgust on her phone the video of the dictator of Azerbaijan lham Aliev parading triumphantly with his wife in this city, the day after the exodus of the inhabitants. “What have they done with our affairs? she wonders. And above all, why hasn’t the whole world reacted?”
Unclear legal status
If the international community is often singled out for its inaction, the resentment of the Artsakhtis is mainly directed towards the Armenian government and its Prime Minister, Nikol Pashinian, who did not support Nagorno-Karabakh, contrary to what he had done in 2020 and 2022. “They let us down, I no longer have confidence in them,” breathes Mihran, father of two children who became a taxi driver in the capital. A former civil servant in the administration in Stepanakert, he shows his passport, the number of which begins with “070”, characteristic of citizens of Nagorno-Karabakh. Their status is difficult to understand: the Armenians of Artsakh (the name of Nagorno-Karabakh) are Armenian citizens with refugee status: as such, they can claim civil rights (such as access to social assistance and education), but do not have the right to vote – to do so, they must apply for a new passport, which frustrates many.
Especially since the Prime Minister is considering a constitutional referendum to, among other things, definitively renounce the classification of Nagorno-Karabakh as Armenian territory. “Now that the Artsakhtis have all fled, Pashinian wants to somehow close the chapter of Armenian Nagorno-Karabakh, explains Benyamin Poghosyan. He probably thinks that it‘is its only option to avoid a new war.” President Ilham Aliyev declared last December that the peace agreements, currently under discussion, could only succeed if Armenia erased all mention of Nagorno-Karabakh in its Constitution.
This strategy raises doubts. Because despite the resumption of the enclave coveted by Azerbaijan for more than 30 years, Baku’s rhetoric continues to threaten the territorial integrity of Armenia, which several Azerbaijani parliamentarians publicly call “Western Azerbaijan”.
Fear of a new war
Near the Azerbaijani border, the fear of a new attack from Baku is palpable. In fact, “only 5,000 Artsakhtis have settled in Syunik [NDLR : situé au sud du pays, entre l’Azerbaïdjan continental et son enclave du Nakhitchevan]because they are afraid that Azerbaijan will invade this coveted region”, specifies Patil Kechichian, project manager at the NGO Health Armenia.
In Vardenis, a town living from agriculture and crafts, in the region of Gegharkunik, 20 kilometers from Azerbaijan, the anguish of a new war can be seen in the eyes of Anna Vardanyan, responsible for the reception of refugees from Artsakh at the town hall. “From here, we see the mountains of Azerbaijan,” she points out from her office window. “And there is the town of Sotk, where clashes took place in 2022.”
At the end of January, some refugees came to collect heating systems distributed free of charge by Ugab. Among them, a mother and her 3-month-old son. His first name: Artsakh. “He’s the one who will bring us home one day,” slips his mother. A dream that seems very distant for the moment.
.