Families still seek support after 2023 fuel depot explosion near Stepanakert

When Zarine Babayan appeared in a television interview, she wore a T-shirt divided in two: one half dark, the other covered in flowers. Since her son Robert was killed in the September 2023 fuel depot explosion near Stepanakert, Artsakh, Babayan had worn mostly black. It had become her uniform of mourning, a way of carrying her son through forced displacement and into an uncertain life in Yerevan. She had intended to wear black for the interview, too. But a friend objected. “Imagine that the dark side of the shirt is Robert, whom you lost,” the friend told her. “But the floral side is your other son, Slavik. Do not forget that he is your son, too.” Babayan did not want to wear flowers. “How could I?” she recalled thinking. Her son was dead. But she understood what her friend meant. Her grief had not become smaller; Slavik, her surviving son, still needed his mother. By September 2023, months of blockade had left people across Artsakh exhausted and fuel scarce. Following Azerbaijan’s military offensive, families desperately sought ways to survive. On Sept. 25, thousands gathered at a fuel depot near Stepanakert, hoping to obtain enough — even five or ten litres — to reach the Armenian border. Then the depot exploded. According to official figures, at least 219 people were killed and hundreds were injured in the explosion. Twenty-three people remain missing. Months of blockade had left hospitals desperately short of doctors, medical supplies and basic medicines, including antibiotics needed to treat burns. Stepanakert’s hospital appealed for the immediate evacuation of patients, as hundreds of wounded people needed care that the depleted health system could not provide. Three years later, families of those killed or missing say they are still seeking recognition, compensation and meaningful government support. They have sent written appeals to the Armenian prime minister’s office, the ministries of defense and labor and social affairs, and the human rights defender. They say they have received no substantive response. Babayan and other relatives of those killed or missing argue that the disaster cannot be separated from the nine-month blockade, Azerbaijan’s military offensive and the forced displacement that followed. People had gathered at the depot because they were desperate for fuel to survive. Among those killed were civilians, servicemen and members of the security forces. Some had been at defensive positions only days earlier. Robert was serving in a special unit of the security forces when he died. His family argues that his death should be recognized as connected to military operations, making them eligible for compensation through ZINAPAH, Armenia’s military compensation foundation, which supports eligible injured servicemen and families of those killed or missing. That connection is being contested in court. According to lawyer Anush Shahramanyan, an administrative court ruled that the explosion was a consequence of military operations and that the family of a serviceman killed there was eligible for ZINAPAH compensation. The Ministry of Defense has appealed the decision, and the case remains unresolved. The victims also included 17 minors and four women. Relatives of civilian victims say they, too, have been excluded from available support. They point to measures Armenia approved for civilians killed, missing or injured during the war that began on Sept. 27, 2020, and ask why similar assistance has not been extended to families affected by the explosion. For Babayan and other relatives of victims, the circumstances in which their family members died are central to their claim. They say the blockade had left Artsakh without adequate means to evacuate and treat the wounded, while the road to Armenia was clogged with people fleeing their homes. Robert was 23 and had been married for just a month. His wedding took place in August 2023, during the blockade, when shortages shaped every part of daily life. “I collected rice cup by cup for the wedding,” Babayan recalled. A month later, he was among those killed at the depot. Before her forced displacement, Babayan directed the Komitas Music School in Stepanakert, an institution with an 85-year history and about 500 pupils annually. She had devoted decades to children’s cultural education, working first at the Stepanakert Children and Youth Creativity Centre, then in the city administration’s culture department, before becoming head of the school. Even during the blockade, she says, the children continued their lessons in the cold. “Their hands were frozen, but they did not stop practising.” The school held its anniversary concert without electricity or microphones. After leaving Artsakh, Babayan tried to keep some of that community together. In Yerevan, she helped organize cultural and musical activities for displaced children. Former pupils have performed in Armenia and abroad, presenting the Artsakh folk song “Horovel” alongside works by Komitas, Aram Khachaturian and other Armenian composers. For Babayan, this work is a way to preserve a dialect and a cultural world displaced along with its people. But she has also had to find a way to earn a living. She lost her home, job and possessions when she fled. In Yerevan, she began making Artsakh pakhlava and jingalov hats, initially as a way of filling the hours after her loss. Gradually, it became a small business. She now runs two outlets where jingalov hats are baked and sold, providing work for three other forcibly displaced women from Artsakh. Although the Armenian government has introduced several support programs for displaced people, Babayan says she has received no assistance to develop her business and no tax relief. She is determined to keep it running. But many forcibly displaced families are struggling with rent, unemployment and the loss of the networks that once sustained them. Those pressures were described in an open letter to the Armenian authorities published on Aug. 28 by Berta Shahramanyan, who lost her husband, father and two younger brothers in the explosion. Despite the Armenian government’s support programs for forcibly displaced people, Shahramanyan, who lives with her mother and a brother with a military-related disability, wrote that her family had received no assistance related to their losses in the explosion or the formal recognition they were seeking. She wrote that as the household’s only working member, she could not afford the monthly rent of 300,000 drams. “In a few days, my family and I may be left without a home,” she wrote. For Shahramanyan and many other families, those killed in the explosion were their households’ main breadwinners. Their deaths left relatives facing both grief and financial insecurity. After years of appeals, Babayan says she has little expectation that the authorities will act. “We have raised these issues in every possible place,” she says. In Yerevan, she continues to run her business, organize musical activities for displaced children and care for her surviving son. Three years after the explosion, Babayan and other bereaved families are still seeking recognition of their losses and the support they say should follow.

Families still seek support after 2023 fuel depot explosion near Stepanakert

This story is FREE for you...

Siranush Sargsyan

This story is FREE for you...

Siranush Sargsyan

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