Nearly 2 000 Boys Leave Armenia Every Year to Avoid Draft, Oppositionist Says

Every year, around 2000 pre-draft age young men leave Armenia to avoid military conscription, Aram Manukyan, a lawmaker with the opposition Armenian National Congress party, said in a press conference on Tuesday.

“This is evidence of the impact that the everlasting semi-war state has had on Armenia’s economy, and the serious psychological effects it has had on the people and their lives. The increasing number of deaths in the army in recent years has not helped the situation either. I’ve studied the results of the researches conducted by [Helsinki Citizens Assembly Vanadzor office head] Artur Sakunts, which evidently show that the statistics have been growing more and more gruesome with every passing year. In the years following the [Nagorno-Karabakh] war, an average of 40-50 soldiers would die annually in the army; in 2015, however, the number amounted to 80 and reached its height in 2016, with 160 deaths. In the current year, we have already had 11 soldier deaths,” Manukyan stressed.

According to the lawmaker, the state authorities’ failure to take steps to stop the “deadly process” is one of the greatest problems facing Armenia. “I’m sorry to say, but soldiers’ deaths in wartime are somewhat justified: they die defending their country. But this debilitating status has been ongoing since the war ended 23 years ago, and nothing is being done to overcome it,” Manukyan said.