23:20, 12 July 2019

Armenian GPO reports death of 29 soldiers in six months

On the contact line in Nagorno-Karabakh. Photo: REUTERS/Staff

In January-June 2019, during their military service, 11 servicemen of the Armenia Armed Forces and the Defence Army of the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic (NKR) perished; 18 other deaths were not related to the performance of service duties, the General Prosecutor's Office (GPO) of Armenia has informed.

The "Caucasian Knot" has reported that in 2018, according to the Armenian GPO, 38 Armenian and NKR's servicemen perished while at service; 25 other deaths were not related to the performance of the service duties.

The reduction of tension in the Karabakh conflict zone led to the fact that combat losses in 2018 were less than in 2017, said Samvel Agababyan, a military observer. However, the non-combat losses have gone up; and it was because of the impunity of commanders and poor training of technical and medical services of the Armenian Ministry of Defence (MoD), Arthur Sakunts and Zhanna Aleksanyan, rights defenders, have stated.

"In the first half of 2019, two soldiers died as a result of ceasefire violations. Three suicides were recorded, as well as one death from an illness, three murders, one accident, and another soldier died in a road accident. Out of 18 soldiers, who perished not during service, 10 died in a traffic accident, and seven – from diseases. One suicide was also recorded," Gor Abraamyan, an adviser to the Armenian General Public Prosecutor, wrote in his Facebook.

Let us remind you that in this June, NKR's MoD accused Azerbaijan of the death of two soldiers of the NKR's Defence Army - Sipan Melkonyan and Artyom Khachatryan.

This article was originally published on the Russian page of 24/7 Internet agency ‘Caucasian Knot’ on July 12, 2019 at 07:28 pm MSK. To access the full text of the article, click here.

Author: Tigran Petrosyan

Source: CK correspondent