18:59, 1 November, 2020
YEREVAN, NOVEMBER 1, ARMENPRESS. The air defense units of the Defense Army of Artsakh have destroyed two drones near Artsakh's capital Stepanakert, ARMENPRESS wasinformed from the Facebook page of the Defense Army.
Author: Kevo Kalantarian
More ARF Volunteers Head to Frontlines
October 28, 2020
[See video]
After completing days-long military and expert marksmanship training, more Armenian Revolutionary Federation volunteers headed for the frontline this week.
The new volunteers were joined by the several dozen soldiers who were on the frontlines for three weeks but were in Yerevan for a few days, most of whom are members of the ARF Youth Organization of Armenia.
Since Azerbaijan began aggressively attacking Artsakh with the help of the Turkish military and Ankara-backed terrorists on September 27, the ARF has sent several groups of volunteers to the frontlines. The ARF Volunteer Reserver Brigade was established in 2017, and in conjunction with Armenia’s Defense Ministry trains volunteers for combat.
“I imagine since we have two neighbors who view us as enemies, this war will not cease, so we must always be ready to be soldiers of the homeland at any given time,” said Hayk Manoukyan a volunteer who left for the frontlines earlier this month. “If it’s not today, if it’s 10 years later—100 years later—we must always be ready to fight.”
The ARF volunteer units include new recruits, as well as those who fought valiantly during the Artsakh Liberation War in the 1990s.
“I was a member of the ARF battalion from 1990 to 1994,” said Ararat Igityan, who left for the frontlines a few weeks ago. “Artsakh is our ancestral home and it must stay that way.”
The ARF volunteers go through intensive training at the Byurakan campground. When one group heads to the frontlines, another group of volunteers begins training for the war.
Armenians in Las Vegas push for peace as regional violence reignites
8 News Now
Oct 17 2020
LAS VEGAS (KLAS) — As violence reignites between Caucasus countries Armenia and Azerbaijan, a group in Las Vegas came together Friday to push for peace across the region.
The sound of sadness echoed for 7,000 miles, as dozens of Armenian-Americans grieved for their homeland.
“The silence of the world to us is deafening,” Lenna Hovanessian, Nevada Co-Chair of the Armenian National Committee of America said.
“We as Armenians are concerned about our homeland,” Hovanessian added. “About our people over there and also that this could really start a global issue.”
The situation stems from decades of tensions, as both countries fight over control of Nagorno-Karabakh. The region lies in Azerbaijan, but has been under the control of indigenous Armenians since the end of a separatist war in the mid 1990s.
“They are bombing civilians, churches and schools,” local Armenian advocate Ani Gullickson explained. “And they need to be held accountable.”
Hundreds have died since the latest outburst began at the end of September, but Armenian-Americans in Nevada don’t just worry about the thousands of others in danger. They are also concerned about the threat of history repeating itself.
“For our community it is reminiscent of the genocide, Armenian genocide of 1915,” Hovanessian explained. “Committed by the Ottoman Turks.”
This is why they are speaking out, asking local and national governments to intervene.
“We want our senators, our congressmen to affect policy change,” Hovanessian said. “The White House and the State Department to stop what’s going on.”
They added that they will use their passion and power here at home to inspire change a world away.
“We’re stronger than Turkey, we’re stronger than Azerbaijan,” Gullickson concluded. “And together we can take a stand.”
The St. Geragos Armenian Apostolic Church has raised $600,000, which will go towards humanitarian efforts in Armenia.
For more information on the Armenian National Committee of America, CLICK HERE.
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Rubble, glass and blood stains: aftermath of Karabakh hospital bombing
CTV News, Canada
Oct 16 2020
Published Friday, 2:20PM EDT
MARTAKERT, AZERBAIJAN — Shattered window panes, doors ripped off their hinges and a caved-in roof is all that remains of one building in the military hospital complex in the mountainous Nagorno-Karabakh region after recent shelling.
The medical facility was struck this week as part of fierce clashes between Armenian separatists and Azerbaijan forces over the disputed province that erupted late last month.
Witnesses said rockets and cluster bombs hit the hospital near the mostly-abandoned northeast village of Martakert late on Wednesday, ripping through buildings and leaving behind deep craters.
They said the strikes hit just as some wounded soldiers were arriving from the frontlines some 10 kilometres (6 miles).
Gevorg Tadevosyan, who left his work as a doctor in the Armenian capital Yerevan to join the fighting, walks through the main hospital building gesturing to blasted out windows and blood stains on the walls.
"The warning siren started. Some managed to run to the basement, but those who were outside were wounded," said the 31-year-old, wearing camouflage and with a Kalashnikov assault rifle slung over his shoulder.
A blaze that ignited in the shelling left behind the burnt-out shells of several cars and vans in the hospital parking lot, now coated in a layer of dust and dotted with chunks of rubble and glass shards.
Two blood-stained stretchers were left outside, AFP journalists at the hospital witnessed.
"Everyone was wounded," recounted Victor Minasyan, surveying the damage the day after the strike.
"Luckily, I avoided serious injuries," he said, despite visible blood stains on the white bandage around his head.
The 36-year-old driver said he was helping to carry in the newly arrived wounded soldiers when the explosions hit, sending his sense of reality spiralling.
"When I regained consciousness, someone was screaming there, another over there," he said.
It was impossible to say how many people were injured in the attack or the number of soldiers being treated in the facility when it was struck, he added.
After the bombardment "we quickly transferred the wounded elsewhere", says Tadevosyan, the doctor and military volunteer who felt compelled to return to his village to defend it when fighting started.
A day later, the abandoned complex was eerily quiet, with just a few cots remaining in emptied wards and several mattresses left on the basement floor.
AFP journalists heard distant echoes of artillery near the hospital, with heavier explosions later sounding from the direction of Azerbaijan.
Karlen Aghabekyan, who lives in one of the small villages near the hospital, described Wednesday's attack as the worst yet since fighting started nearly three weeks ago.
While showing the damage inflicted on his neighbour's house several hundred metres from the hospital, the 56-year-old estimated that one cluster bomb that hit the area led to dozens more explosions.
"First the house burned down, then the fire spread to the nearby shed," he said, shaking his head.
Wearing a beige waistcoat, and carrying an ageing Kalashnikov machine gun, he concedes: "We couldn't put it out".
Several wooden beams were still smouldering in the yard of his neighbour's house, and Aghabekyan paused wearily after locking the gates as explosions sounded in the distance.
"It was the most intensive bombardment we have had in the village," he said.
Turkey denies airspace for humanitarian flight to Armenia
Public Radio of Armenia
Oct 15 2020
The Qatar Airways flight to Los Angeles-Yerevan carrying humanitarian aid to Armenia scheduled for October 15 will not take place, for which the airline did not give a good reason, the Armenian Civil Aviation Committee informs.
The humanitarian aid was sent by the Armenian-American community to civilians affected by the Artsakh-Azerbaijani war.
Qatar Airways informed the Civil Aviation Committee of Armenia about the cancellation of the flight on October 14. The plane was supposed to pass through Turkish airspace, but Turkey is obstructing the humanitarian cargo to Armenia.
“The organization of a new flight route through other countries, such as the Russian Federation or Georgia, is a matter of hours, so the airline must find other ways to transport humanitarian aid. Information from reliable sources at this time suggests that Qatar Airways will not be able to transport the cargo,” Chair of the Civil Aviation Committee Tatevik Revazyan said.
“We also have grounds to claim that Turkey deliberately closed the air route. This is not the first time that Turkey has obstructed cargo transportation to Armenia. Even before the war, the country began to create obstacles, requiring airlines to provide a detailed list of cargo as it passed through its airspace. Although the provision of airspace is a sovereign right of each country, according to international practice, data are required only for dangerous goods in order to respond properly in an emergency (Chicago Convention, Article 5),” Tatevik Revazyan said, adding that the cargo had already passed the inspection stage.
The Civil Aviation Committee of Armenia has applied to the EUROCONTROL, an organization for aviation security, regarding the incident.
These days, several cargo shipments have been made to Armenia from the USA, France and Russia. Cargo transportation is mainly carried out in cooperation with the Civil Aviation Committee and Armenian air carriers. Airlines do this on a non-profit basis (without profit).
Clashes on Artsakh-Azerbaijan contact line continue
21:09, 9 October, 2020
YEREVAN, OCTOBER 9, ARMENPRESS. Clashes continue on Artsakh –Azerbaijan contact line, ARMENPRESS reports representative of MoD Armenia Artsrun Hovhannisyan said in a press conference.
‘’Clashes started today morning with new intensity, they still go on. As usual, clashes take place also at night, but they intensify in the morning. Our Armed Forces continue to adequately retaliate, repelling them to their initial positions’’, Hovhannisyan said, adding that Azerbaijan has suffered serious losses during the day.
Azerbaijan unleashed war against Artsakh on September 27. Turkey explicitly support Azerbaijan both politically and militarily, particularly the Turkish air forces are directly involved in the military operations. On September 29 a Turkish F-16 fighter jet downed an Armenian SU-25 jet in the Armenian air force. The pilot did not survive. Turkey has also deployed thousands of terrorists and jihadists from northern Syria in Azerbaijan to fight against Artsakh.
Azerbaijan has targeted civilian population and infrastructures from the first days of the war, but in the last days they do it more intensively. 22 civilians have died so far, 2 of them in the Republic of Armenia, Vardenis region. International reporters are being deliberately targeted. 2 French reporters were injured in Martuni town on October 1 as a result of Azerbaijani bombing of the municipality of the town. 1 of them was in critical situation but was able to survive. On October 8 Russian reporters were injured as a result of the Azerbaijani high precision strikes against Shushi’s Ghazanchetsots Cathedral. One of the reporters is in critical situation.
Azerbaijan has banned international reporter from covering the developments from the frontline.
Editing and translating by Tigran Sirekanyan
LAUSD board adopts emergency resolution condemning Azerbaijani aggression, adds day off to commemorate Armenian Genocide
KTLA TV
Oct 7 2020
In a move of solidarity with its students and employees, the Los Angeles Unified School District Board of Education unanimously adopted an emergency resolution Tuesday, condemning Azerbaijani aggression against Armenia.
Los Angeles, home to the largest Armenian population outside of Armenia, has seen a number of demonstrations in recent days after Azerbaijan launched a military attack on Sept. 27 in the autonomous enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh, also called Artsakh — a mountainous region bordering Armenia and Azerbaijan.
LAUSD’s resolution, called “Standing with the Armenian People and the Republic of Artsakh,” states that attacks launched by Azerbaijan’s military are a direct threat not only to “the Armenian population that has lived in Artsakh for millennia, but also to regional stability fundamental to United States’ interests,” according to a press release from the district.
The resolution comes after the biggest escalation in a decades-old conflict over the autonomy of Nagorno-Karabakh, which is home to about 150,000 people — about 95% of whom are ethnic Armenians, according to a 2015 census.
For the past week, the Armenian American community in L.A. has decried the escalating violence overseas as a massacre against Armenians and has been calling for international intervention. On Monday, elected officials from the L.A. area also demanded U.S. action to halt Azerbaijan’s attacks.
“Innocent Armenian civilians are dying as a result of this unprovoked attack on their country by Azerbaijan,” said board member Scott Schmerelson, who authored the resolution. “It is important for people around the world to condemn the outrageous aggression.”
And, because Turkey intervened in the conflict, LAUSD board members also called upon the California State Teachers Retirement Fund to divest from “any and all holdings, debt securities, global equities and currency investments by the Republic of Turkey for their continuation of a campaign of genocide against the Armenian people.”
The board also unanimously voted Tuesday to add a new holiday to school calendars to commemorate Armenian Genocide Remembrance Day on April 24. Glendale Unified was the first school district in the country to add the day off in 2016 as a day of remembrance for the 1.5 million Armenians killed at the hands of the Ottoman Empire.
“Our Armenian students are a single example of the immense diversity that exists among our student body and we want to acknowledge the significance of their history,” said board member George J. McKenna III, one of many co-sponsors of the resolution.
Superintendent Austin Beutner added that the board recognizes and remembers the Armenian Genocide of 1915 in hopes of helping to prevent such an atrocity from happening again.
“This resolution reaffirms our commitment to teaching students about the importance of human rights,” Beutner said.
Schmerelson said that the world must be stand with the Armenian people as they are once again under attack.
“LA Unified has a robust curriculum on the Armenian Genocide and the Jewish Holocaust,” he said. “I urge every Social Studies and English teacher in our schools to be sure that they are teaching their students this curriculum. We must never forget.”
https://ktla.com/news/lausd-board-adopts-emergency-resolution-condemning-azerbaijani-aggression-adds-day-off-to-commemorate-armenian-genocide/?fbclid=IwAR1uwZjVIXx3dx08zca4eRI6Z5DbWtEWPEx_ROk9nqhjH7N1tCrU0yHFA9c
Different intensity skirmishes take place along entire contact line – MoD spokesperson
21:34, 3 October, 2020
YEREVAN, OCTOBER 3, ARMENPRESS. Different intensity skirmishes between positions takes place at the moment along the contact line, ARMENPRESS reports spokesperson of MoD Armenia Shushan Stepanyan wrote on her Facebook page.
‘’Defense Army units confidently keep control of the situation’’, she wrote.
Stepanyan also reminded that at 20:26 Azerbaijan also fired missiles against Stepanakert.
Editing and translating by Tigran Sirekanyan
Family business in Burbank hosts donation drop off for Armenian children displaced in clashes with Azerbaijan
KTLA5
Oct 3 2020
Nation/world
BREAKING: Town of Hadrut under bombardment as Azerbaijani forces continue striking civilians
14:06, 1 October, 2020
YEREVAN, OCTOBER 1, ARMENPRESS. The Azerbaijani military again started bombarding the civilian population of Artsakh, the Armenian Defense Ministry spokesperson Artsrun Hovhannisyan said.
“Hadrut is being hit by artillery strikes,” he said.
103 servicemen of the Artsakh military have been killed in the Azerbaijani attacks since September 27. Over 120 troops are wounded. 7 civilians were also killed in different cities of Artsakh as Azeri forces bombarded towns.
Editing and Translating by Stepan Kocharyan