People Spend Both Day and Night Waiting in Bread Lines, Says Artsakh Ombudsman Assistant

In Artsakh, people are not waiting for hours but rather for days to get bread, according to Mary Asatryan, assistant to the Ombudsman of Artsakh, in an interview with Sputnik Armenia.

“People are lining up and spending both day and night in queues. As a result, their entire day is consumed by the issue of obtaining bread,” Asatryan noted.

According to her, there have even been cases where parents send their children to stand in line, and they end up sleeping in the queues. Elderly individuals often cannot withstand the wait and faint.

Asatryan also reported that the flour stocks in Artsakh have run out, and local authorities are currently trying to harvest, dry, and obtain bread from the summer yield.

“The power outages are also affecting the operations of bakeries. We only have electricity for six hours a day, which is insufficient to bake enough bread to meet people's needs. In the case of kindergartens, due to seasonality, it is still possible to source fruits and vegetables from the villages for young children,” emphasized Mary Asatryan.

She reminded that it is not always possible to gather the new harvest, as the enemy deliberately targets harvesting machinery and farmers.

It should be noted that on December 12, 2022, a group of Azerbaijanis in civilian clothes blocked the Stepanakert-Goris highway, linking Artsakh to Armenia, under environmental pretexts. They withdrew on April 28, as Azerbaijan established a checkpoint on the Lachin road on April 23, taking full control of it. Artsakh has also been deprived of gas and electricity supplies from Armenia.