The Republic of Armenia (RA) Human Rights Defender’s fact-finding work in Gegharkunik and Syunik Provinces have confirmed that on May 12 and 13, the Azerbaijani armed forces, being illegally in the RA sovereign territory, have threatened shepherds, the RA border residents, with weapons. Armenia’s Human Rights Defender (Ombudsman) Arman Tatoyan wrote about this on Facebook.
“In the early morning of May 12, in Syunik, in the area from the RA Sev Lake region to the village of Verishen in the Goris community, the Azerbaijani armed forces approached the village shepherd grazing animals, threatened him, and demanded—with a showing of weapon—to leave his cattle barn and pasture.
The fact-finding work of the Human Rights Defender showed that the barn of the shepherd of Verishen is located in the area of pasture constantly used by the residents of Akner, Verishen, and a number of other villages, at a depth from Sev Lake to Verishen civil settlement, and Sev Lake itself is in the RA territory.
In Gegharkunik, on the pastures—at the areas of the hills (cattle barns)—near the village of Verin Shorzha in the RA Vardenis community, on May 12, about 10 Azerbaijani armed servicemen approached the shepherd of the village of Verin Shorzha and threatened him—with showing a weapon—speaking to him in Armenian, too.
On the same day, when 6 shepherds from Vardenis and Ayrk villages were grazing their large and small cattle near the water basin near the same pasture in the RA territory, several dozen Azerbaijani armed servicemen approached them, threatened them with weapons, and gave them 5 minutes to leave; otherwise, they threatened to capture him.
On May 13, about 50 Azerbaijani servicemen similarly threatened—with weapon—the shepherd of Verin Shorzha village, and demanded that he leave; otherwise, threatening to kill or capture him.
In addition to the noted, on May 12, a shepherd from the village of Kut in Geghamasar went to a cattle barn on his hillside near the village and found armed Azerbaijani servicemen—about 50.
During the visit of the Human Rights Defender, it was found out that the pastures are provided to people on a lease with the documents of the local authorities; that is, it is about illegal deprivation of rights on a legal basis.
According to the shepherds, they can longer use the pastures. Moreover, in the village of Kut, for example, residents said they were forced to stop sending animals to the mountains.
The issue is that the Azerbaijani military is physically present in the pastures that are legally owned by the people present, and in some cases it is impossible to use them because they are under Azerbaijani target.
At the same time, the shepherds have informed that they could not even approach the pastures, as in the event of such an attempt, the Azerbaijani military open fire; this also applies to grass.
These circumstances mentioned by the pastors were confirmed by other evidence obtained by the Human Rights Defender, such as pasture use documents, local studies, relevant photographs, etc.
The RA Human Rights Defender’s fact-finding activities on May 12 and 13, 2021 prove that the Azerbaijani military, being armed, have committed criminal acts against the border residents—threatening to kill them or capture unarmed civilians, illegally demanding to leave the pastures and the cattle barns of the hills of the shepherds belonging to them by legal documents provided by the RA competent authorities.
The Azerbaijani armed forces have violated the internationally recognized rights of the RA border residents and enshrined in the RA Constitution—to life, physical and mental inviolability, property, and other vital rights. Moreover, they were wearing masks when communicating with civilians.
It is obvious that in order to protect the RA border residents from such illegal actions, a security zone should be established around Gegharkunik and Syunik along all sections of the border with Azerbaijan.
The issue is that such actions are not single. The fact-finding work of the Human Rights Defender in recent months has registered other cases of the Azerbaijani military’s violation of the rights of the shepherds who are RA border residents.
PS. This photo shows an example of a pasture being under the target of Azerbaijan," the Human Rights Defender of Armenia added.