39 servicemen killed in Artsakh and Armenia over 9 months, Prosecutor's Office reports

The mortality rate among the armed forces, trends, circumstances, and causative factors continue to draw the attention of the public, civil society, and media. Taking into account that official information on this matter is regularly requested from the Prosecutor General's Office of the Republic of Armenia, we inform you of the following:

In the first 9 months of 2019, 39 servicemen died in the armed forces of the Republic of Armenia and the Defense Army of Artsakh. During the same period last year, there were 50 recorded deaths among servicemen. This means that deaths in the armed forces have decreased by 11, or 22%.

Moreover, the decrease was noted in deaths related to military service. Specifically, this year, there were 16 deaths that were connected to military service. Of these, 3 were murders by the enemy, 4 were murders, 5 were suicides and suicide attempts, 1 was related to a service-related accident, 1 due to illness, and 2 were due to accidents.

For comparison, in 2018 during the same period, there were 27 deaths related to military service. Thus, overall, deaths connected to military service have decreased by 40.7% this year.

The breakdown of last year's deaths over the same 9-month period according to the causes was as follows: 7 were murders by the enemy (a decrease of 4 or 57%), 1 was a murder (an increase of 3), 8 were suicides and suicide attempts (a decrease of 37.5%), 2 were related to service accidents (a decrease of 1 or 50%), 3 were due to illnesses (a decrease of 2 or 66.6%), 1 due to an accident (an increase of 1 or 50%), 1 due to a mine explosion (a decrease of 1 or 100%), 3 due to violations of weapon use rules (a decrease of 3 or 100%), and 1 due to violations of rules for combat service (a decrease of 1 or 100%).

In the first 9 months of this year, there were 23 deaths not related to military service. Last year, there were the same number of deaths not related to military service during this period.

According to causes, the breakdown is as follows: 8 were due to illnesses (9 cases in the first 9 months of 2018), 12 due to service-related accidents (11 cases), 3 due to suicides or suicide attempts (0 cases), and 0 due to accidents (3 cases).

The comparative analysis indicates that the decrease in deaths is due, on one hand, to maintaining trends of reducing tension along the Armenian-Azerbaijani contact line, and on the other hand, to improvements in vertical relationships among officers and personnel within military units, compliance with rules of combat service, prevention of serious and particularly serious crimes, and the consistent efforts of prosecutorial bodies and the mid to high command of military units aimed at neutralizing the causative factors leading to crimes.