Helsinki Citizens’ Assembly-Vanadzor

RA MoD spokesperson Shushan Stepanyan reported that on October 8, at around 19:30-21:20, 7 UAVs of the adversary were shot down in Vardenis region of the Republic of Armenia.

On October 8, as a result of rockets launched on St. Ghazanchetsots church of the city of Shushi of the Republic of Artsakh/Nagorno-Karabakh, 3 journalists, who are citizens of the Russian Federation, were injured. The health state of one of them is extremely grave, the health state of the other two journalists is grave. 2 of them were operated on in Stepanakert.

Later, the Armenian Unified Infocenter reported that the three injured journalists had been transferred to Yerevan. The health state of one of them is grave but stable, he is connected to an artificial ventilation device. The other two were transferred to Moscow after receiving the necessary medical aid.

During the fact-finding mission, Republic of Artsakh/Nagorno-Karabakh Human Rights Defender Artak Beglaryan found out that the strike had been launched by an unmanned aerial vehicle. The Azerbaijani military forces  also launched rocket strikes on the nearby area of the mosque in Shushi. Strongly condemning  another  targeting of journalists and the church by the Azerbaijani side, the Republic of Artsakh/Nagorno-Karabakh Human Rights Defender qualifies them as war crimes and crimes against humanity. The Human Rights Defender urged international human rights organizations to make an appropriate assessment and take measures to punish the perpetrators.

On October 9, at around 17:55, Stepanakert, the capital city of the Republic of Artsakh/Nagorno-Karabakh, was again struck with a rocket. This was reported by the RA MoD representative Artsrun Hovhannisyan. Earlier on the same day, at around 11:30,  he reported on his page about Stepanakert being struck with rockets.

On October 9, the Republic of Armenia Human Rights Defender Arman Tatoyan addressed the international community with a video message. He mentioned that it was necessary to immediately cease the ongoing humanitarian catastrophe, victims and mass destructions in the Republic of Artsakh/Nagorno-Karabakh.

At the same time, Arman Tatoyan spoke about calls for hatred and violence, including killings, disseminated through mass media, especially by social media platforms, by Turkish and Azerbaijani sources.

He mentioned that since September 27, Azerbaijani military air and artillery strikes and shelling of the civilian population of Artsakh and Armenia continued in parallel with an immense volume of hate speech against ethnic Armenians.

Read about the previous days HERE