16:27, 8 November 2008

Armenia starts returning its internally displaced persons

Armenia has started its programme of returning internally displaced persons to their permanent residences, where their houses and apartments had been damaged or ruined during the Karabakh conflict in 1992-1994. This was reported to journalists by Gagik Eganyan, head of the Migratory Agency of the Ministry of Territorial Management of Armenia.

As he said, the programme is three years long and will be realized in the Ararat, Tavush, Vayots Dzor, Gegarkunik and Syunik Regions. It assumes restoration of the houses destroyed during the Karabakh conflict in the frontier villages and return of internally displaced persons. Its total budget makes 38.5 million US dollars. Every year, 300 families will get back to their residences.

In 2007, the then president of Armenia Robert Kocharyan emphasized "an enormous watershed" between Yerevan and rural areas, especially high-mountainous, frontier and remote villages. As he said then, the consequences of non-addressing the problem could be of nationwide character.

Author: Lilit Ovanisyan, CK correspondent