Armenia calls-up sick men for army service
By Rashid Shirinov
Conscription has a bad fame in Armenia.
With every new conscription period, hundreds of Armenian families have to fight against the countries’ authorities. The call-up commissions turn a blind eye to health problems of their sons, as their main goal is to gather as many conscripts as possible.
The Helsinki Citizens’ Assembly Vanadzor office has recently reported that young people with very serious health problems are being called up to serve in the Armenian army.
The Armenian authorities cannot understand that calling of young people with health problems to serve the active military service does not increase the fighting capacity, but rather increases the number of deaths in the army, the office said.
Military experts stress that conscription of young people with health problems continues to be alarming.
For instance, soldier Razmik Petrosyan served bulk of his military service in the hospital. He had many problems, such as the third degree flat feet, swelling of the back of his heels, problems with wearing standard shoes, and couple of other problems. Just on the first days of service Petrossian got open wounds from military boots. Then he was given special shoes, but this did not help as the soldier again suffered open wounds. Instead of discharging the soldier from the service, the Armenian militaries came up with illegal ways to keep Petrosyan in the army.
Soldier Tosun Amoyan, who served in Azerbaijan’s occupied region of Nagorno-Karabakh, also suffered from such illegal actions. He had serious problems with right hand, which almost did not work, and the soldier could not even hold a gun. After his parents raised the alarm, the soldier was taken to Armenia allegedly for treatment. However, as it turned out later, that was a distraction – no treatment was given, and the soldier was sent back in army.
Such a careless attitude of the Armenian army to its soldiers often leads to their deaths.
These stories are just a drop in the ocean of other terrible incidents in the Armenian army. However, no Armenian official seems to pay for the abuse of sick soldiers and their deaths. As a result, Armenia literally kills its soldiers, and with each passing day, the country’s population hates the country’s army more and more.
---
Rashid Shirinov is AzerNews’ staff journalist, follow him on Twitter: @RashidShirinov
Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz