Azerbaijan hands over Armenian family
By Sara Rajabova
Azerbaijan has handed over an Armenian family who had illegally crossed into Azerbaijani territory on January10, 2010.
The family was handed over to the Armenian side on the border in the village of Bala Jafarli of Azerbaijan’s Gazakh region on December 12 on the basis of their appeal to voluntarily return to Armenia, the State Commission on Prisoners of War, Hostages and Missing People of Azerbaijan.
The process was carried out by the State Commission on Prisoners of War, Hostages and Missing People of Azerbaijan and the country’s Defense Ministry with the mediation of the International Committee of the Red Cross.
Armenian family-Yegishe Gevorgyan (born 1958) and his wife Ruzanna Mardanyan (born 1982) with their three children - Alfred (born 2002), Gayane (born 2003) and Petros (born 2006) - voluntarily crossed the Armenian-Azerbaijani border by car to move to a third country in 2010.
Risking his own life and the lives of his family members, Gevorgyan crossed the Armenian-Azerbaijani border by a car in the direction of Nakhchivan Autonomous Republic under the intense fire by Armenian armed forces. Gevorgyan and his wife refused to return to Armenia and sent a written appeal to the Azerbaijani government asking to send them to a third country. The family said they had to leave Armenia due to unbearable living conditions.
Under the procedure, the appeal was submitted to the UNHCR Representation in Azerbaijan which started the works on determining the country where they could be sent as refugees.
Almost five years passed since then but no country agreed to accept them, so the family decided to return to Armenia.
During the period of their stay in Azerbaijan, the Armenian family was under the tutelage of the ICRC. The ICRC and the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees constantly confirmed that the family’s living conditions in Azerbaijan meet all international humanitarian legal norms. The members of the Armenian family were constantly passing medical examination.
Nevertheless, Gevorgyan behaved emotionally in most cases putting forward various demands, making ‘complaints’ during the visits of representatives of international organizations and repeatedly threatening to commit suicide, holding hunger strike and so on. By behaving this way, he attempted to put pressure on the corresponding international bodies to send him and his family to a third country.
During this family’s stay in Azerbaijan, Armenia had never raised the issue about their return and didn’t inquire after the fate of Gevorgyan’s young children.
Azerbaijan transferred several Armenians who illegally crossed the borders to the third country or their own country. This comes as Armenia still refuses to return the Azerbaijani hostages.
Armenian special forces killed Azerbaijani citizen Hasan Hasanov and took hostage Shahbaz Guliyev and Dilgam Asgarov in the Shaplar village of the occupied Kelbajar region on July 11. The civilians were visiting the graves of their relatives. The Armenians have put on trial on October 27 the two Azerbaijanis, who were captured in their native lands by the Armenian separatists.
Despite repeated calls by international organizations and foreign countries on Armenia to return the captives back to their country, it refused to do so.
Representatives of the ICRC recently visited Azerbaijani hostages illegally detained in the occupied Nagorno-Karabakh region. During the visit, there was an exchange of messages via ICRC, the Armenian media reported.
The bloody war, which flared up in the late 1980s due to Armenia's territorial claims against its South Caucasus neighbor, left without home over a million of civilians of Nagorno-Karabakh and the regions adjoining it, as well as the regions bordering with Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh.
As a result of the military aggression of Armenia, over 20,000 Azerbaijanis were killed, 4,866 are reported missing and almost 100,000 were injured, and 50,000 were disabled.
The UN Security Council has passed four resolutions on Armenian withdrawal from the Azerbaijani territory, but they have not been enforced to this day.