Refugee, Silikyan, Yerevan, Republic of Armenia © Onnik Krikorian / Oneworld Multimedia 1994

Although as many as 20,000 civilians and combatants died during the conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan over the disputed territory of Nagorno Karabakh, the cost in terms of displaced persons was significantly more. Approximately 1 million Armenians and Azerbaijanis were forced to flee their homes in both republics during tit-for-tat expulsions and ethnic cleansing.

Yet, while the focus of the international community has been on IDPs and Refugees in Azerbaijan, that’s not to say that Armenia was spared. In 2004, I travelled to the north eastern Tavoush region of Armenia with Tim Straight, then head of the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) in Armenia. Although the Armenian government officially puts the number of refugees at 240,000, it is believed that most have left for Russia and other countries.

Informed sources estimate that there may be no more than 70,000 left in Armenia, but regardless, none are going to return to their former homes in Azerbaijan even if a peace deal is signed in 2006. Therefore, the question of compensation for refugees and IDPs on both sides still remains unanswered. This issue was touched upon in an interview I held with Straight in 2004.

Officially, there are 36,000 Azeri-owned houses that are now occupied by Armenians and I have no reason to believe that this number is incorrect. Those might sound like strange words today, fifteen or sixteen years later. That is, that they’re Azeri owned but that they’re occupied. Of course, these refugees fully consider them to be their houses. Legally, however, they’re not.

[…]

I’m not sure but comparing it to the Bosnian situation, a lot of the deals that were made when the Serbs left Bosnia and the Bosniaks were thrown out of Serbia were made under duress and were later declared null and void. However, that was also a completely different situation. There was a lot of focus, a lot of pressure, a lot of money and, in fact, a lot of everything in Bosnia.

Here in Armenia, there’s not a lot of donor presence, not a lot of focus, not a lot of interest and there will be no progress or decision made on this issue until a peace deal is signed. Do they own those houses or not? What about those 36,000 houses that Armenians have been living in for up to sixteen years? Can they be legally titled to those families? What about compensation to the Azeris that used to own them?

What about compensation for those Armenians with apartments in Baku?

None of that is going to be solved until there’s a peace agreement and it has to be part of any deal. You can’t make a durable peace agreement without addressing these issues and they’re horribly complicated. So, in as much as everybody says it’s important, yes it is, but we can’t do anything about it now. In cooperation with UNHCR all we can do is just say that there can’t be a peace agreement without addressing those issues.

Until then, and while the economy continues to fester outside of the uneven and often artificial boom in central Yerevan, refugees and IDPs can be included among the poorest of the most vunerable segment of the Armenian population. Older refugees lack basic Armenian language skills, and their children can sometimes find it difficult to integrate into their host communities.

There was Ivan, a refugee with chronically untreated diabetes who was about to die until we got him help and then we had a woman who lost her baby because she ate badly during her pregnancy. She lived in a container which is cold in the winter and hot in the summer and didn’t have any money. She had the baby delivered at home and it died on the first day.

Then you have the local family that was renting a container just ten meters up the street from this refugee and they lost their baby at sixty days. And then you have the house across the street where a 10 year old boy, Ararat, died of chronic lung disease after his family received a house from us. They had four children and he died because he was born and raised in a container.

[…]

It’s tough. The miracle of 14 percent economic growth last year in Armenia, that’s a Yerevan thing and actually, only certain groups in Yerevan. Yes, there’s now a lot of Mercedes on the streets and yes, I now have to sit in my car waiting at two red lights instead of one and that’s great, but this economic growth is not reaching our target group.

[…]

In another example that I know about, one woman keeps getting pregnant and she’s finally agreed to give her children up for adoption because she can’t take care of them. She’s been used like a sponge by every guy in town and as miserable as it sounds, without being paid. They come and rape her, basically, and take her food.

Armine, Ptghavan, Tavoush Region, Republic of Armenia © Onnik Krikorian / Oneworld Multimedia 2003

And as if that wasn’t enough, local communities situated along the Armenian-Azerbaijani border have been devastated by cross-border shelling and landmines. Thousands of people were forced to flee or have been unable to farm their land, and the problem still exists to this day.

In the first of six operations to save her upper arm, the bone in Armine’s elbow was removed. The ten-year-old hadn’t even been born when conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan broke out over Nagorno Karabagh and had barely turned two by the time an armistice was signed in 1994. Nevertheless, one year after the ceasefire, the conflict claimed another victim.

Armine however, doesn’t want to talk about it.

Her mother though, says that when a group of civilians ran into a landmine in an attempt to escape cross-border gunfire, Armine was caught in the blast. Shrapnel from the explosion ripped through her right arm and across her chest, scarring and disabling her for life. She still suffers from nervous anxieties and depression today.

[…]

Whole villages situated along the Armenian border were reduced to rubble by incessant shelling and landmines situated along the 900 kilometer border with Azerbaijan have resulted in over seventy casualties in the Tavoush region alone. Eighteen people have been killed and eleven wounded by incidents with landmines in the Ararat region. Further south in Siunik, there have been over thirty deaths and forty-four injuries since 1994.

The Armenian government hopes to attract up to 70,000 Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) back to their homes on the border, and organizations such as the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) are engaged in building new homes and repairing basic but necessary infratructure. Nevertheless, the problem goes far deeper than that. There is also the need to stimulate the national economy which many analysts believe can only happen after a peace deal is signed.

Meanwhile, the British Charity HALO Trust in Karabakh, as well as American-trained sappers in Armenia, continue to clear mines and Unexploded Ordnance (UXO) from areas where fighting occured in both Republics, but incidents still occur year after year. In the event of a peace deal, there are concerns that the number of casualties might even increase.

“A peace deal will be signed one day,” adds Simon Porter, former program manager for the HALO Trust in Nagorno Karabakh, “and we are in the perfect situation to tackle the problem sooner rather than later. Otherwise, there will be significant problems when villagers attempt to farm their land, or when refugees and Internally Displaced People [IDPs] return to their homes.”

Tomorrow: Karabakh — More on Landmines and Unexploded Ordnance (UXO).

Refugee children, Silikyan, Yerevan, Republic of Armenia © Onnik Krikorian / Oneworld Multimedia 2004