Disabled Armenian veterans protest over benefits, housing

.c The Associated Press

YEREVAN, Armenia (AP) – Dozens of disabled Armenian veterans protested
outside the government headquarters Wednesday, demanding pensions,
better housing and other benefits for taking part in a war with
neighboring Azerbaijan nearly 10 years ago.

Asya Barkhudaryana, a nurse who was shot and wounded in
Nagorno-Karabakh, said problems with finding appropriate housing were
most acute for the fighters and others wounded during the war in the
early 1990s.

Many complain that only the soldiers who fought in the war and their
families have received adequate housing and government payments.

“The disabled from the Karabakh war are in the most difficult
position, since only families of the dead (soldiers) are given top
priority for apartments,” Barkhudaryana said.

Armenian-backed forces drove Azerbaijan’s army out of Nagorno-Karabakh
– a mountainous ethnic Armenian region within Azerbaijan – before a
cease-fire was signed in 1994, ending the six-year war.

Nearly 30,000 people were killed and about one million left
homeless. No agreement has been reached on the territory’s final
status and relations are tense between the two countries.

10/06/04 14:47 EDT