Don’t Drink Water, We Are Building A Home Here

24/07/2005 Sona HAKOBJANYAN

A couple of days ago, “168 hours” weekly was informed that during the
construction of one of the villas on the Dimitrov Street in the Erebuni
district, one of the water pipes has been damaged causing some
residents to get poisoned from the water. The water supply has stopped
for a couple of days, however, the polluted water has already been
supplied. Some of the residents living on Dimitrov Street have been
transferred to the infection hospital in Nork. Recently, some high rank
officials from the Internal Affairs coordination have built villas on
this street. As for the newly built villas, according to the residents,
they belong to chief of the 7th department of Internal Affairs Eduard
Meliksetyan and district chief of the Erebuni district Mher Sedrakyan’s
brother Vartan Sedrakyan (they say that this villa is his third one).
The last piece of information was not confirmed at the district
council: “The district chief’s brother has had a villa on the coast of
the lake for a long time already and has no problem in building another
one,” said the workers of the district council.

Meanwhile, according to one of the residents poisoned from the water
(he did not want to present himself in order to not have any problems
with the district council in the near future) says that “there is
construction going on our street now. On September 10, we realized that
there is water flowing onto the street. From that day forth, we had no
water for three days. When the water came back, it was very dirty and
polluted. Of course, we were heating the water before drinking it, but
in the end, getting poisoned from the water was inevitable. A couple of
days later, my temperature went up to 40 degrees Celsius, I lost
consciousness and they transferred me to the hospital in Nork in the
morning. I stayed there for eight days. I still have to be under the
doctors’ supervision for another three months. Until now my intestines
are really bad.”

Staff secretary of the Erebuni district council Susana Gevorgyan claims
that she has not received a warning for the water rent from the
district council and that she did not know about the damage of the
water pipe on Dimitrov Street. “As for the construction, that is all
legal,” said Mrs. Gevorgyan. “Everything is done legally in our
district.” Today, there are tractors working in the future construction
site for villas. Construction is going at a rapid pace, but the
residents poisoned from the polluted water are still trying to
recuperate.