One hundred years after my grandfather Nishan Paparian of Kharpert, stepped onto Ellis Island, his descendants still carry the unfinished business of survival. We return to Armenia, stand before Ararat, and remember that the genocide did not end in 1915. It continues whenever Armenians are abandoned to the mercy of those who deny our right to exist on our ancestral land.
Nemo Resideo — leave no one behind. This is not merely a military slogan. It is a sacred duty.
It is sacred because a nation is not a collection of individuals who happen to share a language or a flag. A nation is a moral covenant across generations. When we abandon those who have suffered for us — whether soldiers, leaders or civilians taken as hostages — we break that covenant. We tell the living and the unborn that Armenian lives are negotiable. History has already shown us the cost of such abandonment. From the death marches of 1915 to the forced flight from Artsakh in 2023, every time the world looked away, more of us were lost. Nemo Resideo is the deliberate refusal to look away again.
It is a matter of national honor because honor is the invisible currency by which a small people survives among larger powers. Honor is not pride or vanity. It is the collective promise that no Armenian will be left to face captivity, torture, or erasure alone. When at least 19 of our compatriots remain in Azerbaijan’s jails — former Artsakh political and military leaders as well as civilians, many held for more than 1,000 days, some sentenced to life or decades in closed proceedings — their continued imprisonment is not only a human rights violation. It is a direct injury to the honor of the entire nation. Their return is therefore not a diplomatic detail. It is a question of whether we still recognize ourselves as a people bound by mutual obligation.
Armenia’s Foreign Intelligence Service has assessed that large-scale military escalation with Azerbaijan is unlikely in 2026 following the Washington Declaration and the initialed peace text of August 2025. Border tensions have eased. Demarcation continues. But a deeper danger persists: Azerbaijan’s state-backed campaign to rebrand sovereign Armenian territory as “Western Azerbaijan” and to demand the mass “return” of Azerbaijanis. This is not mere rhetoric. It is policy, advanced through festivals, conferences near the border and events on Capitol Hill. It questions Armenia’s sovereignty itself.
The same regime that holds these 19 men also advances a narrative that treats sovereign Armenian territory as provisional. Both are expressions of the same refusal to accept Armenia’s permanence. True peace cannot be built on the abandonment of captives or the normalization of irredentist claims. Because Nemo Resideo is a sacred duty, the unconditional release of every Armenian held in Baku must be a non-negotiable precondition — not a concession to be traded for silence on other issues. Their freedom is the clearest test of whether any agreement respects the dignity of the Armenian nation.
Framing diaspora advocacy for the hostages and the displaced people of Artsakh as the cause of Azerbaijan’s escalatory rhetoric risks inverting responsibility. Demanding their release is not maximalism; it is the minimum requirement of international law and national honor. When former Artsakh leaders speak from prison of feeling abandoned by the Republic of Armenia, the wound is felt across the diaspora. Adherence to Nemo Resideo remains a sacred duty. We will not leave them behind.
The diaspora’s duty under Nemo Resideo
The global Armenian diaspora possesses real leverage. We must deploy it with clarity and persistence — without compromise.
The recent 44–7 vote in the House Foreign Affairs Committee demanding the immediate and unconditional release of all Armenian hostages is a foundation. That vote must now become full House and Senate action, and the administration must treat the hostages’ release as a prerequisite, not an afterthought. Expand support for the ARMENIA Security Partnership Act, Magnitsky sanctions and full enforcement of Section 907. Make the freedom of these 19 men a bipartisan litmus test.
Keep their plight before the world. Document their isolation and health crises. Reject any narrative that treats their continued detention as compatible with “peace.” Support European Court of Human Rights cases, ICC efforts and demands for independent medical access. Press partners to condition further engagement with Baku on their release.
Whether through grassroots strength, professional advocacy or economic support for Armenia’s security, the diaspora must act as one. Nemo Resideo is not partisan. It is national. The return of these 19 is a matter of our honor as a people.
Armenia’s geography is unforgiving. Its security will never rest on temporary calm alone. It requires hard deterrence, diversified partnerships and an unbreakable commitment to those who have already paid the highest price. The hostages in Baku are not relics of a closed chapter. They are living proof that the struggle for Armenian survival continues.
Nemo Resideo. Leave no one behind. Until every Armenian captive is free, the peace remains incomplete and the nation’s honor remains engaged. Like the crane in Toumanian’s poem that still seeks its nest, our journey home is not finished. That home is a secure and sovereign Armenia — whole, free, and unbound by the captivity of its people. Let us make certain that none of our own are left behind on the road that leads there.
