2 Lebanese Armenians go missing in Artsakh since cessation of hostilities

Two Lebanese Armenians have gone missing in Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh) after the armistice was declared, Zareh Sinanyan, the High Commissioner for Diaspora Affairs of Armenia, told Armenpress.

“We have two Lebanese Armenians who have disappeared. A man and a woman have disappeared in Artsakh after the ceasefire. They went there to get their belongings, and now they are missing. We are trying to find out their whereabouts, but we are unable to find them,” Sinanyan said, adding that unknown individuals speaking Turkish or Azeri were answering the mobile phones of these missing persons.

One of these Lebanese Armenians had repatriated after the August 4 explosion in Beirut and settled in Artsakh. The repatriated woman was temporarily accommodated in a hotel in Shushi until getting a home. Then, when the war began, she moved to Goris, Armenia. When the war ended, on November 10, accompanied by a Lebanese Armenian man, she supposedly headed to Shushi from Berdzor to retrieve her belongings.

They went missing ever since. Sometime thereafter, calls to their mobile numbers are answered by Turkish or Azeri people who initially claimed that the Lebanese Armenian woman is held hostage, but then said she is killed. There is no information about the missing Lebanese Armenian man.

The High Commissioner for Diaspora Affairs has contacted the National Security Service, the Human Rights Defender, the Red Cross over the matter.