, is one of tens of thousands of ethnic Armenians who have fled to Armenia this week, after officials announced thathave now left the disputed region, which broke away from Azerbaijan after the collapse of the Soviet Union, amid events that Armenia’s prime minister, Nikol Pashinyan, has called aby Azerbaijani forces], when there was no light, gas supply or internet, no flour to bake bread, because we were in our homeland,” says Anoush, who was one of dozens of people to contact the Guardian via...
“It was so difficult to leave. My sister and brother were in school. I packed a handful of soil from my homeland, a photo album and some warm clothes.”Four days later, the group arrived in the village of Tsovak in eastern Armenia, where Anoush’s boyfriend, who has Karabakh roots but lives in Armenia, has rented a three-bedroom house.
Muriel Talin Clark, 51, a UK resident with Armenian roots, had travelled to her ancestral homeland last month to volunteer for the educational charity Oxford Armenia Foundation and was supposed to return to London two weeks ago. “Many people have been starving, eating only potatoes for instance, they ran out of everything, even salt,” she says. “We have had a few children arriving with fever. At night, the temperature drops a lot, but people don’t have suitable gear.”