‘They open the car, count how many of you are there and that’s it. Go. You no longer have a homeland’: Mariam Sargsyan

When we heard explosions in the basements, we understood that this war would be the end for us, Mariam Sargsyan tells Alpha News, recalling her last days spent in Artsakh.

“It seemed that those missiles were falling on our heads, and it was simply impossible to escape from them. When we reached the basement, I do not even remember if there were five minutes when the explosions were not heard,” she says.

According to Mariam, they were expecting the Azerbaijanis to open the door and enter at any moment.

“The lights were off. Day and night got mixed up. You are sitting in the basement and don’t know when this will end. Sitting there, it seems to you that the Azerbaijanis will open the door and enter the basement at any moment. And that will be the real end, that will be genocide.”

When Mariam heard the first explosions, she was at her husband’s place, who lived in the very center of Martuni. She went out with the child in her arms and her mother, who had come to visit her for lunch.

“My mother worked in the Martuni district administration. My husband’s house was in the center of Martuni; I also lived there. My mother came for lunch. It all started when I was setting the table. My mother was talking on the phone with my sister, who had come to Yerevan from Artsakh accompanied by the Red Cross a week ago. I understood that it started again, but I didn’t want my sister to hear this sound,” says Mariam.