In Armenia, rights defenders state violations of Armenian refugees' rights

The network of the civil society "Refugees and International Law" has issued an open letter addressed to the Prime Minister of Armenia Tigran Sargsyan on suspicion of embezzlement by responsible officials of the funds allocated to build houses for refugees.

The "Caucasian Knot" has reported that in the period from 1988 to late 1991, because of the Karabakh conflict, more than half a million Armenians from Azerbaijan were forced to leave their homes. According to the Assembly of Armenian Refugees, about 360,000 of them had found refuge in Armenia. To date, the country has registered about 3000 refugees from Azerbaijan and about a thousand - from Iraq. The rest of them had received Armenian citizenship.

"For addressing the problem, the government of Japan had allocated more than 760,000 US dollars. It was decided to use the money for erecting two apartment houses in Kasakh. On June 25, 2010, the first house was solemnly opened; however, after a while it became known that the above sum had been completely spent, and the second house would not be built. The news caused panic among the refugees, who had settled in Kasakh, since many families were hoping to get flats there," said the letter.

A couple of months later, the newly-built house began cracking; and it was announced that it was subject to demolition. Then, it was decided to renovate the building by strengthening its foundation. Refugees and still crammed in former prison cells; and nobody was ever brought to responsibility for what happened, rights defenders assert.

They came to conclusion that both the respective state institutions of Armenia and the relevant international organizations are dominated by solely consumerist attitude to Armenian refugees from Azerbaijan, which, in their opinion, should be immediately put an end to, the "PanARMENIAN" reports.

The organization urges the Prime Minister and the Government of Armenia to get into the circumstances of this case and, given the respective grounds, to take the necessary steps to reveal the perpetrators.

The authors of the letter have also revealed that the funds provided by the Japanese government were commanded by the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).

Roza Minasyan, an employee of the above Office, was in charge of implementing the project of building the two apartment blocks in Kasakh. By decision of the Office, a construction contractor was chosen. Besides, a tripartite commission was set up, composed of Ms Minasyan, G. Yeganyan, the head of the migration agency under the Ministry of Regional Development of Armenia, and A. Mkrtchyan, the head of the municipality of the village of Kasakh, the "Tert.am" writes.

So far, the positions of the UNHCR Office, Ms Minasyan and representatives of the contractor, as well as the members of the above tripartite commission, are unknown.