New Details Emerge in the Case of the Fire at the Azat Barracks

On the 18th, I was at home. The commander of the military corps called me at night; I reported and he said, 'There has been a fire in the village of Azat, hurry up and see what has happened.' This was revealed today during the latest court session regarding the case of the 15 servicemen who died in the fire at the Azat military unit, by witness Shiraz Khachatryan.

'I immediately went to the village of Azat, people were gathered, there were fire trucks, and I tried to ascertain what had happened. At that time, nothing was clear yet. Half an hour later, Aghekyan Goran told me that a serviceman had attempted to ignite the stove with a canister of gasoline, and the canister, carelessly or somehow, turned over towards the barracks where the personnel were sleeping. After removing the deceased, we found that we had 15 casualties. I was present at the firefighters' work, trying to assist in any way, to speed up the process so that at least we could save one soldier alive from there,' Shiraz Khachatryan noted in his testimony.

He mentioned that he participated in the search and rescue operations along with the rescuers and that with his help, they retrieved the bodies of 4 soldiers from the barracks.

It is noteworthy that on January 19, 2023, at around 01:30, a fire broke out in the barracks of the engineer battalion of the Armenian Ministry of Defense's N military unit located in the territory of the village of Azat in the Gegharkunik region, resulting in the deaths of 15 conscript soldiers. Seven soldiers were transported to the Vardenis hospital, of which four were discharged after receiving medical assistance, while three were transferred to Yerevan with serious injuries to the National Burn Center.