Children from Artsakh Traveling on Vorotan Road: Ombudsman Remarks on Incident Involving Azerbaijanis

We must create guarantees for the protection of our children and our rights. Until we do this, Azerbaijani armed forces will continue to commit such offenses and allow reckless behavior. This was stated by the Human Rights Defender of Armenia, Arman Tatoyan, on his Facebook page, accompanied by a video showing Azerbaijani soldiers stopping an Armenian bus.

“There will always be uncertainty. It has been nearly a year that I have cautioned about issues with concrete evidence. In this video, armed and masked Azerbaijani servicemen stopped a civilian bus transporting children. The children are from Artsakh and were traveling on the Vorotan road. Together with the Human Rights Defender of Artsakh, Gegham Stepanyan, we have established that the children are players of Artsakh’s football team, aged 15-16 years,” Tatoyan wrote.

The Azerbaijani servicemen, armed and masked, searched the children’s phones under the pretext of finding some videos. The bus was held for 10-15 minutes. During this time, they also scraped the Artsakh flag with a knife.

Azerbaijani sources proudly circulate this video. However, the question lies in the behavior exhibited by the Azerbaijani armed forces towards the children, aiming to intimidate them with masks and weapons. The video has now been posted on Azerbaijani social networks, accompanied by audacious insults towards the children, calls to kill Armenians, and deep hatred. All of this is a result of years of state-sponsored policy of Azerbaijani anti-Armenianism. We have documented the evidence,” Tatoyan concluded.