YEREVAN, March 7, 2021 (BSS/AFP) – Nver Gasparyan, who was
injured during the fighting for control of the mountainous
Caucasus region of Nagorno-Karabakh last year, is haunted by
memories of the war that ended in national humiliation for
Armenia.
The 20-year-old was one of thousands of people wounded during
six weeks of a brutal conflict that erupted in September and saw
swarms of Azerbaijan’s drones pummel the ageing Soviet-era
hardware of Armenia’s military.
“I don’t want to talk about it. I don’t want to remember,”
Gasparyan told AFP as he was undergoing physiotherapy to
strengthen his injured legs.
“I want to forget everything as soon as possible, to erase the
sounds and images of war from my memory.”
At a hospital for veterans being treated for physical and
psychological wounds in the capital Yerevan, Gasparyan said he
avoids ruminating about the future.
“I don’t think about tomorrow, whether or not I’m going to
study. Right now I’m focused on getting better and restoring the
mobility in my legs,” he said.
– ‘Not going to give up’ –
The latest flare-up in fighting between the ex-Soviet rivals
left more than 6,000 people dead on both sides and sparked a
political crisis in Armenia, which has struggled to come to terms
with the devastating loss.
Thousands returning from the front are now also processing the
war and what comes next.
Military doctor Roman Oghanyan was wounded by shrapnel near
the frontline when artillery hit his ambulance, killing his
colleague.
He told AFP he lost consciousness and woke up later in a
hospital.
“God saved me… from an imminent death, and I’m not going to
give up,” the 25-year-old said.
“I plan to go back and work in the ambulance service and
continue helping people.”
The health ministry in the tiny Caucasus nation has said that
some 600 soldiers are disabled and around 150 require prosthetics.
More than 300 veterans are undergoing treatment at the Centre
for the Rehabilitation of the Homeland’s Defenders in Yerevan, one
of several facilities designated for former soldiers.
“We are helping the wounded understand how their bodies have
been affected … and are trying to motivate them to go on to
live,” the hospital’s chief physician Lusine Poghosyan said.
“These guys not only have to learn how to live without an arm,
a leg, or an eye, but also to heal their moral trauma,” she told
AFP.
“The 18-20-year-olds have seen horrible things. Many have
persistent nightmares or suffer from insomnia.”
– ‘In a hurry to live’ –
Thousands of people have been taking to the streets in Armenia
near daily, calling for revenge and demanding the government’s
resignation, ever since Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan signed a
ceasefire agreement that handed over significant territory to
Azerbaijan.
But the embattled premier has said he had no choice but to
agree to the humiliating ceasefire agreement, or see his country’s
forces suffer even bigger losses to a superior enemy.
Unlike protesters on the streets, Sarkis Harutyunyan, who lost
both his legs in the fighting, is eager to move on.
The 20-year-old conscript was just a few months shy of
fulfilling his contract when the war broke out and now says he
can’t wait to start learning to walk with his new prosthesis.
“I’m in a hurry to live. I have plans. My girlfriend is
waiting for me and we plan to get engaged in two months,” he said
with a bashful smile.
The war in Karabakh ended in November with a Russian-brokered
ceasefire that saw Yerevan cede swathes of territory, and a mass
exodus of Armenians from what they say are ancestral lands.
But Harutyunyan’s native Martakert district has remained under
Armenian control and he says he hopes to return there one day with
his family.
“There is no need to look back. The guys did not die in vain.
Nothing was in vain.”