Azernews.Az

By Rashid Shirinov

Migration of tens of thousands of Armenians abroad every year is not surprising long ago. The more interesting fact is that approximately 2,000 underage people a year emigrate from Armenia.

Aram Manukyan, MP from the oppositional faction Armenian National Congress, said at a press-conference on February 21 that the main reason of such a big outflow of boys from Armenia is the desire to free them from military service.

“This proves that the existing long-lasting condition of 25-year-old semi-war seriously affects the economy, the psyche of people and the lifestyle. This was accompanied with the increasing in recent years number of murders in the army,” the Armenian MP said.

Manukyan went on to say he reviewed the studies of the Armenian office of Helsinki Citizen’s Assembly and found out that the statistics of recent years is deteriorating rapidly.

“After the war, some 40-50 boys of our army were losing their lives, but this number rose to 80 in 2015, and to 160 in 2016. And we have already 11 casualties for a short period of this year,” said Manukyan.

There is much evidence suggesting that a considerable part of those deaths were the murders inside the Armenian army or suicides by force of bullying and threatening a soldier by Armenian officers or his fellow soldiers.

One of the victims of the Armenian criminal regime was a 20-year-old Armenian soldier Arsen Mkhitaryan who lost his life 8 months ago in one of the Armenian military units.

The preliminary investigation into the body immediately after the incident revealed that was an act of suicide.

The parents of Arsen Mkhitaryan and their lawyer told Epress.am agency about distrust towards the preliminary investigation, the circumstances of the death of Arsen and letters to officials, which remained unanswered.

Mkhitaryan was found dead with a fatal gunshot wound in his chin. Within a few hours of the incident, a criminal case was filed in accordance with Article on incitement to suicide of the Criminal Code.

The parents of the soldier do not believe that their son committed suicide. They say he was speaking normally and was hilarious while talking on phone with them a day before his death: “It was not a condition of a person who intends to commit suicide,” the mother says.

After the incident, the dead body of Mkhitaryan was brought to his parents. “They killed my child and brought his corpse," the father says.

Mkhitaryan’s father added that he knows some details of the incident but the preliminary investigation body makes every effort to keep him quiet.

Despite eight months have passed since the incident, there is no clear version about the circumstances and details of the soldier’s death.

The family’s lawyer Norayr Norikyan says there is serious suspicion that the perpetrator or perpetrators have powerful patrons, including the officers of the military unit, who do everything possible to withhold the death circumstances.

“I was always against him serving in army. But we live in such a state, and now I really regret staying here and giving my son to them,” the soldier’s mother says.

Long story short, it is obvious that there is something fishy in the investigation of the death of soldier Mkhitaryan. And there are dozens of such stories of mysterious deaths in the Armenian army, most of which are being registered by Armenian investigation bodies as suicides in order to hide the real circumstances and real murderers.

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Rashid Shirinov is AzerNews’ staff journalist, follow him on Twitter: @RashidShirinov

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