Mikayel Arushanyan, a 2nd degree invalid resulting from his participation in the Artsakh War, has eight children. His entire family has no home to call their own. All their efforts to somehow extricate themselves from the dire straits they’ve been living in for years have proved fruitless.

The family resided in Stepanakert, the capital of the NKR, until 1990. Mikayel and his wife, who moved there from the city of Stavropolin 1979, worked in the “Gharmedaks Factory” in Stepanakert and lived in one room (36 square meters) in the factory’s dormitory.

In 1990, according to what Mikayel Arushanyan told us, theMunicipality ofStepanakert entered into an agreement with government planning bodies stating that the family would have to live in thevillage ofKhachen, located in the Askeran district, for a period of five years.

“I don’t know, they told us that the villages had to be defended and developed and that’s why we were being sent there. But there was a stipulation that after five years we would return to Stepanakert to our waiting dormitory room and that our registration, made in 1984, on the waiting list of those needing an improvement in apartment conditions would still be valid. In the end it turned out just the opposite for they took away our apartment in which we had been registered even till now.” laments the former freedom fighter who pulls out his employment book, the pages having turned yellow with moisture, to show us the appropriate information.

The house in Khachen in which they now live, but which doesn’t belong to them, lacks the basic necessities. It’s one of the oldest houses in the village and more resembles an earthen hut than a house. Upon entering, one first notices the moisture-streaked walls. The large family lives in 2 small rooms with only four beds. It’s impossible to sleep on the floors because they are so damp and one of the room’s floors is just dirt. The skinny kids, who are hunched over, look at me with smiling faces and are embarrassed when it comes to answering my questions.

Little Gohar, who has turned seven, mostly doesn’t attend classes. The other school-aged kids usually don’t go to school either. According to their mother, Rita Danielyan, the reasons are varied, “The kids don’t have proper clothes or shoes. We don’t have any normal sleeping quarters for the kids to rest up after school. Neither do we have anywhere for them to study.” She continues to note that her kids are always getting sick and that there’s no money to take them to the hospital.

It’s due to a lack of financial resources that she can’t take one of her sons, Grigor, who’s also a 2nd degree invalid (he came down meningitis while in the army and was discharged) to get a medical check-up in Yerevan. Rita Danielyan blames their serious social state on the fact that both her husband and son are invalids but that until now they haven’t received any pensions since their passports are the old types and that the Stepanakert Buildings Division hasn’t provided them with a certificate to get new passports. It’s due to the same reason that the kids have received no state assistance since the beginning of the year. Up till then some kind-hearted individuals had procured the requisite certificate based on their dormitory room registration.

The ensuing confusion stems from that same room where Rita, her husband and their elder children are registered. “In 1995 when we were supposed to return to our dorm room in Stepanakert we couldn’t live there because the place had been damaged by a missile attack. From that day on I started knocking on the doors of various agencies requesting assistance in getting us decent housing. The delays were horrendous but they kept assuring us that the room would remain ours even though it couldn’t be renovated for the time being. In 1999, when I traveled from the village to the dorm, I noticed that the room’s lock had been changed. I started asking around about what had happened and was told that the room had been allocated to a woman named Kamela Gasparyan and her three children.” recounts Rita who’s at her wits end because she doesn’t know where to turn to next to have her rights reinstated.

According to Rita that woman didn’t reside in the room from 1999 to 2003, when they repaired the dormitory’s roof. During those years Rita took her case to a number of government agencies with the hope of getting the room returned to her. The issue was never resolved and she turned to the courts as a last resort. The court decided to grant the room to Kamela Gasparyan.

The Arushanyan family has petitioned the Stepanakert Municipality and even Former NKR President Arkady Ghoukassian on several occasions to obtain an apartment for their large brood but no concrete action has yet been taken. They now hold out hope that the new government will respond to their pleas by allocating an apartment for them in a building being erected for the dormitory residents, a step that will also resolve their pension and assistance issues as well

“We’ve run up such a tab at the village store that we’re embarrassed to step foot inside to buy a bit of flour so that the kids don’t go hungry. We’d be fine if we get the assistance and the pension money. Is it because we are wretched that they don’t give us these benefits? It’s all because of one little certificate that we have all these problems. Is that what we’re fighting about?” asks the disillusioned former freedom fighter. “Our flour is just about finished but I’m at a loss as to what we’ll do next, where we can buy some more?”

We went to Narine Azatyan, the NKR’s Minister of Social Security, for some answers. Minister Azatyan is also a member of the government’s residential planning coordination committee. The Minister confessed that she wasn’t familiar with the details of the case but promised to look into the matter and respond in kind. The Minister stated, “The aim behind the creation of the residential planning center was exactly to review similar cases. After investigations are concluded the appropriate documentation can be directly submitted to the committee, post haste.