The four families expelled from their homes on Byuzand street due to the needs of the state don’t know where they will celebrate the New Year. They continue to live in roofless shelters after the expulsion. The mothers of these families have gone out on a hunger strike starting from December 15.
The health statuses of 56 year old Gohar Mkhitaryan, 51 year old Susanna Poghosyan, 33 year old Anahit Melkonyan gets worse by the day. The hunger strikers have sent letters to the Yerevan municipality, the general prosecutor, the central department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the UN, the OSCE, the U.S., the embassies of England and Russia, the Armenian and International Red Cross demanding to defend the rights of people living on the Northern and Main streets and compensation for the alienated property, however, they had not received a reply from anyone until yesterday morning. “The local doctor came, said hello and left. The next day a nurse visited us, measured our pressure and left,” says Nune Varduni. Yesterday morning, Anahit Melkonyan’s situation was so bad that she was forced to call an ambulance. At around 8:45 a.m. the ambulance doctor visiting Anahit started to moan and asked why the hunger strikers had not called him after 9 so that he could have found a substitute for him and go home. Susanna Mkhitaryan, who was barely standing on her two feet and breathing heavily, said: “I am feeling bad, but I will never call an ambulance if they are going to come hear and talk in that tone. If they do that, I will get worse.” “Really, if I have somewhere to go, I will leave and won’t wait for them to knock my door. We have to move out anyhow,” said Anahit Melkonyan as she was crying with all her might. Her family is still living in the roofless shelter after the expulsion. They left their newborn baby to the officers and the residents have closed the broken windows of the home with paper bags. “They ruined everything for us just when New Year was coming up. My 4 year old grandchild looks at me and says in a crying tone-Grandma, what are we going to do for New Years’?” Besides the hunger strikers, the other members of the family-22 in number-have turned into hunger strikers out of their own will. “How can you sit next to a hungry person and eat?” says Gohar Mkhitaryan’s daughter Astghik Hovhannisyan who believes that women of the family have kept the decision to go out on a hunger strike a secret. Fighting against all this by going out on a hunger strike does not instill much hope in the people, but the mothers have decided to continue. On the fifth day of the hunger strike, owner of the construction investment program of the Project Implementation Office (PIO) Karen Davtyan said that he had been informed about the hunger strikers two days ago, had gone to see them, however, did not find them. “Today, I have assigned my colleagues and “Vizkon” INC to find out what’s going on and talk with the residents,” said Mr. Davtyan after writing down the addresses of the residents that we had provided for him.
“Vizkon” will not be threatened
“They want to threaten you, rip you off, they have other political goals and want to take political refuge abroad,” say the “Vizkon” INC representatives who consider their activities as legal. Alexander Amaryan, who is in charge of economic security for “Vizkon” INC, assures that the residents of Byuzand street are not involved in political games. “If they want to play a political game, no problem-we can put an end to those games too. We can turn them into criminals because we have many materials.” According to Mr. Amaryan, all the residents were provided with homes back in the 1980s, however, they did not give up Byuzand street. Amaryan claims that he has conducted many studies about that, has taken out all the documents in the archives that can prove that the residents of Byuzand are trying to rip people off by threats. “We can give those documents to the police; let them find out how the state homes are distributed, but we don’t do that by taking into consideration the people’s “yes”,” says Mr. Amaryan and assures that “Vizkon” is so kind that it not only doesn’t hand in the residents to the police, but also, it has proposed many compensations. The owner of “Vizkon” Pavlik Andersyan states: “We proposed a 76 square meter home on Saryan street for hunger striker Nune Varduni in exchange for her 36 square meter home worth 23,500 dollars. She still wants another 15,000 dollars for remodeling, which we rejected. We proposed 120,000 dollars to Avetik Yeranosyan’s 33,750 dollar 60 square meter home in exchange for the 70 square meter home. Avetik demands 180,000 dollars; basically, he wants 3,000 dollars for 1 square meter. I don’t get it, where do they come up with those numbers?’ Mr. Andersyan has found other residents in terrible conditions; all the envelopes returned to “Vizkon” read: “We don’t know “Vizkon”. “I have shown some people the documents and told them that I am certified by the municipality to talk with you, but those people refuse to talk. I can’t find a way to reason with them,’ said P. Anderson. The residents are also amazed at Pavlik. “We don’t need their millions. They are kicking us out of this small center, at least let them provide us with a home in the big center and we will go live there right now.”