Montrealer says lucky to be alive after escape from Nagorno-Karabakh
Five-hour trip to Yerevan took a week
MONTREAL - Karekin Odabashian feels lucky to be alive after fleeing in the dead of night with bombs going off all around him.
Speaking from his family home in the Armenian capital of Yerevan, Odabashian, 73, spoke of his harrowing escape from war-torn Stepanakert, capital of the majority-ethnic Armenian region of Nagorno-Karabakh — which is internationally recognized as belonging to Azerbaijan. He left the embattled city Monday at 8 p.m. and arrived in Yerevan the following Tuesday at 4 a.m. — a trip that normally takes five hours.
“We were right in the thick of it, to say the least; not only were the bombs audible, but they were visible as well. We saw explosions and smoke rising,” said Odabashian, who grew up in Montreal. “At my age, I don’t mind admitting that it was scary. Very scary.”
Odabashian, who lived in Montreal and Toronto for 40 years altogether, has been working for the local telecommunications company in Stepanakert for the last eight years, splitting his time between that city and Yerevan, where his wife and son live. He was in that city when fighting broke out on Sept. 27 between armies of the autonomous Nagorno-Karabakh region and Azerbaijan proper, backed by neighbouring Turkey. This was the second time he has lived through a conflict between both forces, as there was a four-day war that broke out in 2016.
This time, however, fighting intensified quickly and has become the worst armed conflict between both sides since a war erupted in the 1990s when Nagorno-Karabakh tried to assert its sovereignty. So far in this conflict, more than 250 people have died in 11 days, including dozens of civilians on both sides, according to official reports. Thousands of buildings and roads have been bombed in the NagornoKarabakh region.
Hoping the bombing would end soon, he tried to stick it out. When he found out the building where he was working was a target, he said he had no choice but to leave.
“We were lucky enough that one of our drivers was with us at the time, because most of the people from our team had already left,” Odabashian said. “All our company cars had been destroyed, including mine. There were three of us, and we jumped into his car in pitch black darkness and literally sped away. The power had been turned off all around the city.
“Many of us have seen Hollywood movies when there’s a bank robbery, and the criminals get away in a speeding car; it was exactly that, but in real life. The road to Yerevan was dangerous up to a certain point because of shelling, and the road conditions had deteriorated because of the bombings. There were craters all over the place.”
The international community called this week for a ceasefire in the region, and Canada stopped selling its drone technology to Turkey while it investigates whether the technology is being used by the Azerbaijani military against Nagorno-Karabakh forces.
Speaking to the Montreal Gazette on Wednesday, Armenia’s ambassador to Canada, Anahit Harutyunyan, said she’s concerned about civilian casualties and hopes the international community can help halt the aggression.
“We’ll continue to make our voices heard,” Harutyunyan said. “For us, Armenia is a guarantor country for security for people living in NagornoKarabakh. We are in favour of finding a peaceful solution, and our prime minister has said a peaceful solution should be based on the agreement of the people of Azerbaijan, Nagorno-Karabakh and Armenia. We are ready to negotiate.”
Montreal Armenian community leader Harry Dikranian said he’s concerned about the conflict intensifying, and said there has been language used by the Azerbaijani government to dehumanize Armenians, comparing them to insects.
“People are worried, because it wouldn’t take much for Turkish or Azerbaijani soldiers from marching into Armenia,” said Dikranian, who is a board member of the Armenian Bar Association.
He added that the spectre of genocide constantly hangs over the heads of Armenians.
“This kind of thing has happened to the Armenians before. This is our chance to make sure it doesn’t happen again.
“The fear is always there. When you listen to the rhetoric from Azerbaijan, it’s very worrying,” he said. “It’s dehumanizing language. The way they refer to Armenians is just horrifying.”
Odabashian said he, too, is concerned about the conflict intensifying. He said while the 2016 skirmish was between two armies, in this case, civilians are being directly targeted.
“We were right in the thick of it, to say the least; not only were the bombs audible, but they were visible as well. We saw explosions and smoke rising.” Karekin Odabashian