Gevorgyans Do Not Know What Happened to Their Son on October 2, 2020, in Jabrayil

The Gevorgyans have been waiting for their only son for over two years. Since October 2, 2020, the parents have had no answer to the question of what happened to their Roman on the battlefield that day.

Roman was a conscript soldier, having been drafted in January 2019. He served in a training unit for the first six months, then moved to Kubatlu, and from there to Jabrayil.

“On October 2, friends called to say that Roman's tank had been hit. Not officers but my son's friends… We went to Goris, I spoke with the mechanic from the tank crew, who said that a drone had struck, which knocked him down, and Roman was thrown out, while the commander remained in the tank and burned,” Nairi Gevorgyan, who has been searching for her son for two years, told News.am.

Roman last spoke with his parents on the very day of October 2, and his father clearly remembers the time—around 8 PM—whereas the mechanic told the family that the incident occurred at 11 AM. “How is it that he called me in the evening? The mechanic also said at the end that he was in a daze and couldn't remember. Another said they were hit at 3 PM. I spoke on the phone with the second commander, Arthur Muradyan, who said, ‘Your son is dead,’ but I asked, ‘Where is the body? There is no information at all. What happened to my son?’”

The Red Cross was only able to approach the destroyed tank on December 20. Nairi recounted that they discovered the body of the commander, Monte, inside the tank. The Gevorgyans also contacted the Ministry of Defense. The father is perplexed that the ministry learned information about their son from them, and not the other way around. “Initially, they recognized my son as dead, then as missing... they say, ‘Wait, wait...’ One of the soldiers also told us that the mechanic had jumped out and fled the tank, which is why that boy didn’t even have a scratch. Now, whether my son fled as well, is captured, or what happened, we don’t know. We have been in uncertainty for two years.”

It should be noted that on September 13, 2022, starting at 00:05, units of the Azerbaijani Armed Forces began intensive shelling along the entire border with artillery and heavy caliber firearms, also using UAVs. The adversary struck both military and civilian objects.

On October 14, during a meeting of the CIS leaders, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan announced that the number of casualties and missing persons due to the aggression had exceeded 210, including 3 civilians killed and 2 missing. According to Pashinyan, 293 servicemen and 8 civilians were wounded, and the number of missing servicemen stood at 28.

On October 4, Azerbaijan returned 17 Armenian prisoners of war. As of November 29, Azerbaijan had returned 156 bodies to Armenia. On December 19, the Investigative Committee reported that the number of casualties on the Armenian side as a result of the attack was 224.