On Orthodox Christmas, somber Armenians look back on ‘the worst year’

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region — It’s Christmas for some Orthodox Christians on January 6, but Armenians in the region of Nagorno-Karabakh are not in the mood to celebrate.

The disputed region, known by Armenians as Artsakh, was just the scene of a deadly six-week battle between Armenia and Azerbaijan. A Russian-brokered ceasefire was struck in November, but not before over 100 civilians were killed and tens of thousands of people were displaced.

The streets of Yerevan, Armenia’s capital, are devoid of their usual festive sparkle, funds for New Year and Christmas decorations reportedly redirected towards relief for areas worst hit by the war.“The lights will be brighter next year”, Armenian prime minister Nikol Pashinyan promised in his New Year’s Eve message. In the Karabakh capital of Stepanakert, Christmas decorations put up by a charity organisation founded by the prime minister’s wife were taken down after complaints by locals, reported the privately-owned News Armenia outlet.

Among Stepanakert residents who aren’t celebrating Christmas this year is Irina Safaryan, a 28-year-old social activist originally from Hadrout, a city taken by Azerbaijan in the recent war.

Christmas celebrations would not be fitting for what was “the worst year for Armenia”, Irina told Rudaw English.

“Some families are celebrating it at home for the sake of their small kids, but generally speaking, no one is in a festive mood,” she said.

Control of Karabakh has been a matter of dispute between Armenia and Azerbaijan for decades. With the slow dissolution of the Soviet Union in the late 1980s, the Armenian population of the region asked that it be put under control of Armenia. War between Armenia and Azerbaijan broke out in the early 1990s; by 1994, Armenia had taken control over a swath of the region, forcing Azerbaijan to enter negotiations and give up the land in a ceasefire brokered by Russia. The area was then administered by an Armenia-backed local government.

Ever-present tensions between the two countries escalated to an untenable level, and a fresh war over Karabakh broke out on September 27, 2020. Baku sent thousands of troops into the territory, looking to take back land many Azerbaijanis believe to be theirs. Stepanakert was among the towns subject to shelling by Azerbaijani forces.

“We woke up early in the morning, around 7:15 am, and we were filled with uncertainty when we knew we were being attacked,” Irina recalled of the shelling.

Over the course of the six-week war, Armenia conceded much of Karabakh to Azerbaijan. Civilian death toll estimates say that 65 Armenians and 100 Azerbaijanis were killed. Armenia said 2,425 of its soldiers died in the war; Azerbaijan announced on December 3 that it had lost 2,783 of its soldiers. 

Irina believes that locals are still in “shock” over what happened.

“There are families who have no idea where their men are, or even if they are alive – the whole country is mourning”, she said. “I myself have lost lots of friends”.

There is one thing that Irina has been able to hold on to as Christmas approaches – visits to the ancient Armenian monastery of Dadivank, just north of Karabakh. The monastery is in territory under Azerbaijani control; Armenians can visit just once a week, with permission from Russian peacekeepers deployed to Karabakh as part of the November ceasefire.
 

The fighting saw international human rights organizations report violations of war conventions by both sides. Human Rights Watch alleged that both Armenian and Azerbaijani used cluster munitions. Baku committed ‘apparently indiscriminate’ attacks on Karabakh, and a ‘possible war crime’ by bombing an Armenian church in October. 

Turkey played a vital supporting role to Azerbaijan, supporting its army with drones equipped with Canadian WESCAM sensors. Photos and videos showing Turkish-backed Syrian fighters in Karabakh sent to fight on behalf of Azerbaijan made international news. On December 10, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey arrived in Baku to attend nationwide celebrations marking Azerbaijan's military triumph over Armenia.

Irina and other Armenians say Turkey brought “mercenaries” and “terrorists” to Karabakh, and are now using them to instigate long term demographic change.

“Turks, Azeris, and Syrian mercenaries are now settling in Hadrout and areas around it,” she said. “Artsakh has been made a center for terror.” 

Irina said that “voice recordings of Azerbaijani officials and commanders offering $100 for each Armenian head the mercenaries managed to cut” were circulating on Armenian social media groups. After an examination of gruesome videos that included the decapitation and torture of captives  posted online, Amnesty International said both sides had committed war crimes. 

Some Armenian soldiers are still in hospital receiving physical treatment for war-inflicted wounds – among them 18-year-old Arthur Harutyunyan. 

Three months before the war began, Arthur, from Mertakert – one of the few cities given to Armenia in the peace deal – had begun his compulsory military training, which Armenians must undertake for two years upon graduating high school. On September 27, when the Azerbaijani military began its attack on Karabakh, he and his comrades were called to duty, at the border city of Jabrayil.

The war started “alright” for Armenia, Arthur told Rudaw English from a hospital in Yerevan. But on October 10, he and around 20 other soldiers were attacked and surrounded by Azerbaijani soldiers. In an attempt to save their own lives, Arthur and five of his comrades sought hideout in a forest – the start of a 70-day flight for survival.

The six soldiers took to the roof of an abandoned house in a village near Hadrout. “At night when the soldiers would leave, we would sneak into the abandoned village and try to get food and drinks, there was no water so we would rely on juice we found,” Arthur said.

They spent almost three weeks on the roof, before deciding to find a way out.

“On December 6, we decided to try to cross the Aras lake into Iran,” he said, from where they would try to enter Armenia on the other side. “On the way, we would stop on every mountain and every hill to see if we could get Armenian signal.”

“We had travelled almost 60 kilometers, when we finally got signal on December 17,” he said. “By that time, walking had become really hard for us because we were all suffering from frostbite.”

The six were rescued on December 20 and taken to Stepanakert hospital, then transferred to Yerevan on December 24. There, Arthur had all five of the toes on his left foot amputated – four partially, and one completely. He has been in hospital since then and looks back on what he witnessed during the war.  

“When we were being attacked on the mountains, we would hear a call of “Allahu Akbar” (God is the greatest) with every bomb thrown at us,” he said. “They would attack us with weapons much more advanced than ours. It felt like we were fighting against many countries.

Recovery from the trauma of war will take a long time, Arthur said.

“Armenia has wounds that need to heal… My family are now in Yerevan and we do not know if we can go back to our own city, because our safety is not ensured.”

From afar, members of Armenia’s diaspora say they too have felt the effects of the war – particularly Turkey’s involvement.

Ellada Ghukasyan, a 35-year-old Armenian journalist, moved from Yerevan 13 years ago to Paris,  a city home to a sizeable Armenian community. She is married to an Armenian man, with whom she has a five-year-old son. They want their child to maintain a strong bond with home, and visit Armenia often.

“When the war started, we found it unbearable, and we took to the streets to express solidarity,” Ellada told Rudaw English. “But when we blocked the streets in Lyon, Turkish nationalists came and attacked us.” 

When Armenians in France took to the streets of Paris and other French cities in a show of support for their country during the war, marches were met with resistance from members of the Grey Wolves, a Turkish ultranationalist group. 

Pro-Armenia demonstrators blocked a motorway near Lyon in solidarity with Armenians in Karabakh in October, members of the Grey Wolves headed to the scene and attacked protestors using hammers and knives. One of the injured had to be taken to hospital as a result. That night, supporters of Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan roamed the streets of Decines, chanting “This is Turkey!” and “Where are the Armenians?”

A few days later, the Armenian genocide memorial center in Lyon was vandalized with anti-Armenian, pro-Turkey graffiti – the fourth time it had been vandalised in its 15-year existence.

Tensions between France’s Armenians, who number anywhere between 250,000-750,000, and parts of the one million-strong Turkish community had already been simmering before the conflict in Karabakh, and the Grey Wolves were among the main agitators. In July, a pro-Armenia protest in Decines against escalating tension in Karabakh turned violent, with four people of Turkish descent arrested.
  
The Grey Wolves were banned in France by the country’s interior ministry on November 4, a few days before the Armenia-Azerbaijan ceasefire, and the organization's leader Ahmet Cetin was handed a four-month prison sentence for inciting violence towards Armenians and Kurds on social media.

But the move came too late for people like Ellada, who said she can no longer live in peace in France “because of Turkey.” 

“When the war ended, my five year old son came up to me and said, ‘are the Turkish people kind now?’ and I didn't know what to say,” she said.

Ellada feels especially let down by the French government. French President Emmanuel Macron initially expressed strong support for Armenia, but over the course of the conflict, he tempered his statements until they matched  the ‘neutral’ stance of his government’s foreign ministry. 

Ellada said she was disappointed at “France and the world” for their lack of solidarity with Armenia.

“I did not see the value of humanity that France and many other countries claim to have”, she said.

With the majority of Karabakh now controlled by Azerbaijan, Ellada too will skip Christmas celebrations this year – the least she could do in solidarity with Armenians in Karabakh, she said.

“It was not an equal fight”, she said, her voice weary. With Turkey steadfastly supporting Azerbaijan, “we were fighting two countries all alone”. 

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