Two young men, K.S., 16, and A.P., 17, who are residents of Stepanakert, according to preliminary information, got lost in the forest belt near the village of Khnatsakh. The Crisis Management Center of Artsakh’s State Service of Emergency Situations was alerted about the incident at 8:09pm on Sunday, October 31.
The young men were athletes, who ran along a bypass road and then could not orientate themselves in the area because of fog, the State Service of Emergency Situations said in a statement.
Rescue squads and police units, led by Director of the State Service of Emergency Situations Mekhak Arzumanyan and Stepanakert Police Chief Boris Jalavyan, headed to the area to carry out search operations.
"Mobile communication was successfully established with the men at times, which was supposed to facilitate the search efforts, but because of the darkness and fog, they could not communicate their exact location," the service said.
The search continued through the night in difficult geographical terrain, but the night searches yielded no results.
After nearly 15 hours of searching, the young men were found and brought to Stepanakert at 1:25pm on Monday.
It is also noted that their lives and health are not in danger.