Azernews.Az

By Abdul Kerimkhanov

Although the Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan has previously said about the population growth and elimination of the negative tendency in the demographic situation, the data of the National Statistical Service for the first quarter of 2019 tell the opposite.

As of April 1, 2019, the Armenian population decreased by 7,800 people compared to the same period of 2018.

At the same time, compared with the beginning of the year, the country's population decreased by 3,200 people due to the negative migration balance excess totalling 3,900 people over the natural increase of 700 people.

The number of Armenia's urban population is 1.89 million (a decline of 1,100). In Yerevan, the figure is 1.08 million inhabitants. In rural areas, the population decreased by 6,700 people to 1,07 million people.

Moreover, in the first quarter of 2019, as many as 8,042 children were born in Armenia, which is 3.1 percent less than the same period in 2018, according to the National Statistical Service. At the same time, the number of deaths increased by 3.4 percent to 7,373 during this period.

Armenian Prime Minister believed that after the velvet revolution the Armenian citizens who went abroad will return to their homeland. However, this did not happen and very soon the situation returned as it was under the previous authorities.

Many people who arrived in Armenia in the April revolution days and after it has gone away. As the data of the current year shows, Armenians left Armenia under the former regime and continue to leave it under the new regime.

One of the reasons for population decrease is undoubtedly an increase in the departure of entire families from Armenia forever. Armenian men do not want to serve in the army because of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, that emerged after Armenia's illegal territorial claims against Azerbaijan. Children from socially disadvantaged Armenian families are sent to serve in the occupied Azerbaijani lands in Nagorno-Karabakh and become victims of the Armenian leadership's interests.

Over the past 29 years, the Armenian population has decreased by more than 1.5 million (in 1990, the population was 3.57 million people). If to charge on figures one can assume that the remaining population in Armenia is hostage to Pashinyan’s interests.

Thus, the development of events makes it possible to say that until 2040, Armenians will not be able to fulfil the wishes of Serzh Sargsyan, who set a target to the government to bring the number of population to 4 million people.

According to the UN report on demographic forecasts for individual countries, which describes the dynamics of the change in the population, Armenia's population will be 1.8 million people in 2100.