Investigation Underway After Mother and Daughter Jump Off Bridge in Yerevan

A 37-year-old woman and her daughter, 9, jumped to their death off a bridge in Yerevan on Thursday. Gayane H., Haykakan Zhamanak newspaper writes, was divorced and lived with her parents. According to a statement issued by Armenia’s Investigative Committee, the capital’s Arabkir investigation department has launched a criminal case into the incident under articles 104.1 (murder) and 110.1 (incitement to suicide or suicide attempt) of the Armenian Criminal Code.

“The neighbors, who were rather shocked by what had happened, said there was nothing out of the ordinary about the family; they were, however, quite low-key and never really made contact with the other residents of the apartment building,” Haykakan Zhamanak reports, stressing that the mother and daughter had been missing for three days before before allegedly committing suicide. Their relatives had filed a missing person report with the Mashtots police department.

The press service of the Ministry of Emergencies told the paper that the woman had been an employee of the ministry’s Eastern Seismic Protection Service since December 1, 2017. According to the ministry spokesperson, prior to the 3-day absence, the woman had neither warned her coworkers or employers that she would not be coming into work nor hinted about her suicide intentions.

“Later we found out that both Gayane and her mother used to work for the Emergency Situations Ministry for quite a long time. In the fall 2017, however, the women were both laid off after the ministry began cutting jobs. Gayane then appealed to the minister, saying that firing both her and her mother would put the family in a dire situation. The minister agreed to help and offered Gayane a job in a different department,” Haykakan Zhamanak writes.

The paper’s reporter reached out to the press service of the National Police to find out where the bridge’s on-duty officers were at the time of the incident. “An investigation is currently underway to establish all the circumstances of the incident,” a police spokesperson replied.