Armine Manukyan. “Security concerns prevail today”

During the Artsakh war, the Syunik region was the first to receive and support Artsakh refugees, and for some, it became a permanent residence. The loss of much of Artsakh deprived many of their homes, livelihoods, and futures. The village of Shrvenants, which is part of Kapan community of Syunik region, was not an exception, our compatriots from Hadrut and Kashatagh hurried here, but, unfortunately, not all of them were able to stay long, and why, the administrative head of the village Shrvenants Armine Manukyan introduced in a conversation with WomenNet.am.

Mrs. Manukyan has been working in local self-government bodies since 2005, and since 2017 she has been the administrative head of the community. She is well aware of all the problems and advantages, she has encountered many problems during these years, trying to find solutions. However, many of these problems have already led to the gradual abandonment of young people in the village.… Today, security concerns prevail, as it is not known what will happen in the future. She says that from the very first day of the war she received many phone calls from the people of Artsakh, people wanted to come to the village to live, but, unfortunately, the problems that the residents of the community had to adjust to became an obstacle for those families.

“The primary problem is that our village does not have a school; we could not provide for the children to attend school. That is why we could not accept families from Hadrut or Kashatagh,” she said. The question arises, where do the children of the village go to school?

It turned out that the village school was closed 11 years before the enlargement, in 2010, when the village had only one student. After the closure, the family moved to Kapan. Today there is a family with four children in the village, there is no school, the parent has to take the children to the school in the Ukhtar community, which is 5 km away from Shrvenants. And talking about kindergarten, of course, is completely meaningless, it does not exist and it will be difficult shortly.

Nevertheless, the village was not able to receive the Artsakh refugees but did not stay out of the process, it supported them as much as possible. Ms. Manukyan mentioned that during the war, when there were shootings in the Davit Bek community and the situation was uneasy, the community received a young family, who were provided with a place to live and everything else necessary. Supported by those who had pasture problems for their animals. Besides, the village is small and mostly inhabited by pensioners, but even they all took part in it, collected money through the village, and transferred it to the servicemen’s insurance fund.

Shrvenants is not on the border, but they have many security concerns. She says we all understand that today our security is not guaranteed, we are especially worried about the border with Kapan, that feeling gets worse when, for example, you go to the Shikahogh community and see the Azerbaijani flag on the way.

Armine Manukyan hopes that the general situation will not worsen, people will not have to think about leaving the village. As of today, she stressed, the residents do not have such intentions, but God knows what will happen next…

Full text in Armenian