Epress.am News from Armenia
On Oct. 3 at around 7 pm, the body of Samvel Gevorg Khachatryan, 18, Artashat military commissariat, serving in the N military unit, was found hanging in the basement of the same unit, reports RA Ministry of Defense Information and Public Relations Department. The defense ministry has promised to report the details of the incident soon.
It should be noted that this is but one in a series of continuing incidents in Armenia’s armed forces.
The first alarming incident took place in July, when Lieutenant Artak Nazaryan died in military unit 21177 in Tavush marz (province). According to officials’ preliminary findings, Nazaryan had committee suicide; however, the lieutenant’s family categorically had denied those reports, saying that he had been murdered. Later, an autopsy revealed that the conscript “had received injuries while he was still alive, 6 hours before his death.”
On July 28, in one of the military units in Martuni, conscript Karo Ayvazyan shot 5 fellow soldiers before turning the gun on himself.
On August 17, in the N military unit’s combat location, Harutyun Yurik Vardanyan, 26, fired two shots to the chest at Arsen Yervand Chopanyan, 44, both serving in the same unit. Chopanyan died on the spot.
On Sept. 8, in Vayk military unit, conscript Artur Hakobyan killed himself. According to the defense ministry release, around 9:30 am, warehouse manager and soldier on contract, Junior Sergeant Artur R. Hakobyan, according to preliminary data, killed himself in the storage room with a shot in the head.
On Sept. 25, around 10 pm, on the northeastern border area of the N military unit’s combat location, according to the RA defense ministry website, another horrifying incident took place.
According to the official report, as a result of a violation on the rule on use of weapons, Artur Norayr Mkhitaryan, 19, Etchmiadzin commissariat, of the N military unit received a fatal gunshot wound. An Epress.am correspondent had gone to Mkhitaryan’s home village of Aragadz and spoke with his uncle Alexan who said that he had been present during his nephew’s autopsy.
“I was present during the autopsy; the doctor says that if [the shot] was from close by, the face would’ve been burned; however, there’s no burn whatsoever. And the shooter wasn’t an enemy, but an Armenian,” he said.