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Two Conscripts Found Dead In Armenia


Two conscripts have been found dead at different locations in Armenia’s southern Syunik province, according to the country’s military authorities.

The Defense Ministry reported the two deaths within a space of only several hours.

It said in the morning that the body of 20-year-old Albert Siroyan was found last night at a military post along the border with Azerbaijan near the town of Kapan with a gunshot wound to the jaw.

According to the Investigative Committee, a criminal case has been initiated on the hallmarks of a penal code article dealing with inadvertently causing a serviceman to commit suicide.

The Investigative Committee has not provided other details yet and there is no suspect in the case at this moment.

Siroyan was conscripted in December 2020.

A few hours later, the Defense Ministry reported the death of another conscript, Eduard Rustamian. The body of the 19-year-old soldier was found at a military unit in Meghri with a gunshot wound on it.

The Investigative Committee said a criminal probe has been launched to establish the circumstances of the incident. It said the soldier received a fatal gunshot wound in the chest from an automatic rifle registered to his name.

Leading human rights activist Artur Sakunts, who has dealt with army incidents for years, believes that continuing cases of deaths, murders and suicides in non-combat conditions in the ranks are an indicator that reforms carried out in the army are nowhere near enough.

“After the [2020] war [in Nagorno-Karabakh], approaches should have been much more radical, much more effort should have been made. And we, unfortunately, record that such problems were not solved during the year after the war. We attach great importance to reforms, liberal transformation, but the concept of rebuilding or reform of the Armed Forces is still unknown. First of all, of course, the responsibility lies with the General Staff of the Armed Forces. Because it is the General Staff of the Armed Forces that is directly responsible for the organization of military service,” Sakunts, the head of the Helsinki Citizens’ Assembly’s Vanadzor office, told RFE/RL’s Armenian Service.

According to the organization headed by Sakunts, seven Armenian servicemen have already died this year, including the latest deaths; four of them were killed as a result of ceasefire violations and one was killed by accidentally electrocuting himself.

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