Death Certificate for Fallen Hayk Musayelyan Not Issued

I am a freedom fighter, and I never imagined that such issues could arise, that our state wouldn’t grant us even a piece of land. This is what Shamshad Musayelyan, resident of the village of Tandzut in the Kashatagh region of Artsakh, told Tert.am during an interview. His brother was killed in the war, but he has not yet received a death certificate for him.

Shamshad shared that they are originally from Charentsavan and moved to Artsakh with his family in 1994, settling in the village of Tandzut in the Kashatagh region. “We have lived there for 27 years. I participated in the military operations of 2016, I was a commander of a volunteer detachment, and in 2020 I formed a unit in the same manner. On September 27, we went to Berdzor, where we were told that the fighting in 2016 is not the same, and we need to unite with the army. Our detachment was separated; we went to Jabrail from the military enlistment office. Half of the boys from my detachment remained in Jabrail, and three of us were taken up to Aralerr,” Shamshad recounted.

He noted that he climbed Aralerr with his brother, Hayk Musayelyan. “On October 4, at noon, my brother was killed by an attack drone’s shell, and I was wounded. I took my brother to the hospital in Hadrut, from where I was sent to Stepanakert by ambulance for examination; it turned out I had a serious ankle fracture, but I explained to them that I wouldn’t stay in the hospital. I needed to return to the positions. By the evening of the 4th, my brother had already been brought to Stepanakert, and from Stepanakert, he was transferred home in a sealed coffin by state order, by ambulance,” he said.

Shamshad Musayelyan informed the media that his parents are elderly, over 70, and have health issues. “They asked me to bury my brother in Charentsavan. That’s how we brought him back, and we buried him on the 7th in the cemetery of Charentsavan. Then I returned to Artsakh, thinking that the death certificate for my brother would be issued. Until the 30th, my little brother and I stayed in self-defense, again received weapons with the boys from our detachment, and entered self-defense. I came back on the 30th and it became a big problem. My parents were sent from door to door, asking them to bring papers, death certificate, etc. The mayor’s office says there must be a death certificate, it needs to be legalized, and that piece of land where we buried my brother will somehow bring some compensation later; those papers are needed,” he reported.

Musayelyan recounted that he went back to Artsakh to the Kashatagh military enlistment office to present the situation, and they are aware of how things are. “There is some compensation of 700,000 drams for the parents of the deceased; my father even received that. However, the death certificate has become a problem. They send us to Stepanakert, we go to Stepanakert, and the doctor at the Stepanakert morgue says, ‘I haven’t examined your brother; I haven’t even seen your brother.’ I, with my grief set aside, explain to the doctor that how could you have examined my brother if he was already dissected by the Turkish drone’s shell…,” he noted.

The freedom fighter stated that he was again sent back to the enlistment office, which provided the same response. “I talk to all the institutions, and they all refuse, sending me to the morgue, and there they say, ‘How can I give you a paper when I haven’t seen your brother, nor have I touched him?’ We’ve found ourselves in such an absurd situation. I am a freedom fighter, and I never imagined that our state wouldn’t grant us even a piece of land. That’s why I was unaware of such issues, and now that we have just returned from our positions, it is the third day I’ve seen my family,” the media interlocutor explained.

Shamshad Musayelyan concluded, “We did not leave our Tandzut, we did not abandon our lands; we were simply expelled.”