Parents block Pashinyan from reaching sons' graves

PanARMENIAN.Net - Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan visited Yerablur Military Pantheon on January 27 to pay tribute to those who died defending the homeland. However, the morning was marked by protests from relatives of fallen soldiers, who gathered to block Pashinyan and other officials from reaching the graves of their sons.

Vigen Azatyan, father of conscript Arman Azatyan who died during the 44-day war, said the families opposed the new memorial date, as reported by Panorama.am .

“For us, only September 27 matters. Why isn’t that date commemorated at a state level? Are the Azerbaijanis forbidding it?” he asked.

Gevorg Harutyunyan, father of fallen soldier Harutyun Harutyunyan, told reporters that police officers in uniform and plainclothes arrived at the site before Pashinyan.

“They didn’t come for our boys. They came to guard some Turk, so the traitor could enter Yerablur and leave,” he said.

Harutyunyan said he came specifically to prevent Pashinyan and other officials from approaching his son’s grave.

“I don’t want him near my son’s grave. Our boys believed in a different cause. We know why they died, why they sacrificed their lives. I don’t want him desecrating my son’s resting place,” he stated.

According to Harutyunyan, Pashinyan likely avoided the section containing the graves of 44-day war victims and only visited the area with graves of soldiers from the 1990s.

This January 27 marked the first official observance in Armenia of the Memorial Day for those who died defending the homeland.

Prime Minister Pashinyan, accompanied by President Vahagn Khachaturyan, Parliament Speaker Alen Simonyan, and other high-ranking officials, laid flowers at the graves of Vazgen Sargsyan and Andranik Ozanyan and placed a wreath at the memorial dedicated to fallen freedom fighters.