Students Abducted and Illegally Detained by Azerbaijan Have Returned, Says Artsakh Ombudsman

Students abducted and illegally detained by Azerbaijan have been returned. This was reported on Facebook by the Artsakh Ombudsman Gegham Stepanyan.

“On September 7 at approximately 17:45, the Azerbaijani side returned students Alen Sargsyan, Vahe Hovsepyan, and Levon Grigoryan, who were abducted and illegally detained while being transferred from Artsakh to Armenia on August 28, accompanied by the Russian peacekeeping forces. The boys were handed over to the Armenian side near the Hakari Bridge with the participation of Russian peacekeepers. They have been transferred to the Republic of Armenia,” Stepanyan wrote.

The Ombudsman’s office will conduct a study on the details of the abduction of Alen Sargsyan, Vahe Hovsepyan, and Levon Grigoryan, their treatment during arbitrary and illegal detention by Azerbaijan, and their health status.

The abduction and arbitrary detention of civilians, specifically Vagif Khachatryan, Rashid Beglaryan, Alen Sargsyan, Vahe Hovsepyan, and Levon Grigoryan, as well as Azerbaijan's inquiries into false and fabricated criminal cases, unequivocally demonstrate that the Azerbaijani illegal checkpoint located near the Hakari Bridge poses a direct and undeniable threat to the physical existence and fundamental rights of the civilian population of Artsakh.

This so-called checkpoint has transformed into a tool to serve Azerbaijani criminal arbitraries, through which civilians are abducted and deprived of their freedoms, while 120,000 residents are kept under blockade, deprived of humanitarian access and the possibility of protection of basic human rights,” Stepanyan added.