in Armenia, the first refugees from Nagorno-Karabakh recount the hell of their flight

An uninterrupted ballet of buses takes families to the Goris reception center. The Red Cross gives them some food, a little girl rushes for the candy. “We must excuse himsaid his mother. She hasn’t seen one in 10 months.” They are part of the first group of refugees from Nagorno-Karabakh, who entered Armenia on Sunday September 24, using the Lachin corridor. Nearly 400 people were able to flee the enclave.

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Private vehicles, but also buses chartered by the Armenian government, picked up at the border women, children and elderly people who had found refuge in Stepanakert airport during the attack by the Azerbaijani army on Tuesday September 19 . They were taken to Goris, the first major town after the border.

And they all tell the same story, the flight as soon as the Azerbaijanis attacked. “We came out under artillery fire”, tells Boris, 81 years old, leaning on a wooden crutch. He comes from the village of Khanabat. “We came out under artillery fire. It’s true that they hadn’t entered the village, but they were on the heights and they were shooting. The rockets were passing over our heads. If we didn’t Hadn’t left the village, we would all have died.”

“The mayor announced to us that we had capitulated, that our armies were withdrawing and that everyone had to save their lives.”

Boris, 81 years old, from the village of Khanabat

at franceinfo

Angela was actually serving in the army. “We gave up the weapons, we burned the large artillery pieces. We gave back the ammunition, the helmets. I was forced to take off my uniform. And it was strangers who gave me these clothes, she said, pointing to her red sweatpants. they told us to leave everything, no knife, no scissors. Even the nail scissors, I had to throw them away. And I passed.”

At the airport, “two loaves of bread and two cans” for six

Angela mainly talks about waiting at the airport. “It was horrible”confides the soldier. “For several days, newborns were on the ground, with no roof or tent over our heads. For six people, we had two loaves of bread per day and two cans of food to feed us.”

Svletana fled the village of Haterk. She ran the pharmacy there. She is wearing an elegant jacket, and clutching her handbag. That’s all she could take. “They launched a Grad missile, the drones were circling, we were shaking. We were trying to get out by going under the bushes to take shelter.”

“We couldn’t take anything. Nothing. Not a souvenir, not a photo to show our grandchildren our birthplace, our homeland.”

Svletana, who fled the village of Haterk

at franceinfo

“We didn’t want to leave, leave our homeland, the graves of our loved ones”, adds Svletana. She cries while talking about her house, her garden which she took care of. “We have lived through so many wars. And now here we are on the roads like miserable people. No one can understand if they haven’t lived through it.”