The Tzitzernakaberd Genocide Memorial in Yerevan will be closed to the public on April 24 due to the onging coronavirus crisis.

Eduard Aghajanyan, Chief of Staff to Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, stated that the memorial will be off limits starting today.

Instead, according to Aghajanyan, church bells throughout the country will ring on April 23 at 11pm and streetlights in Yerevan and provincial capitals will be turned off.

“We call on the citizens to turn off the lights in their apartments and turn their gaze to the memorial,” Aghajanyan said.

Public TV in Armenia will broadcast the lighting of the lights in the memorial complex live.

Citizens can also participate in the commemoration remotely by sending an SMS message to the number 1915, thus confirming their participation in the day's event. The names of the citizens will be reflected in the columns of the memorial.

Visits by officials - the Prime Minister, the President, the Speaker of the Parliament, as well as the Catholicos of All Armenians - to the memorial will start at ten in the morning on a staggered basis.