![\"\"](\"https:\/\/ampop.am\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/11\/Samvel_Arsen_02.jpg\")
<\/a>\u201cI have learned my Arsen was in Tchankatagh on 17 September. He would regularly ask to send me cold drinking water. I would freeze water every other day and would send it to the military post with my father. He hadn\u2019t asked for water for a few days in a row, so, I made a phone call to check on him; he said, no, mum, you can\u2019t send it to where I am. That\u2019s how I learned he was in Tchankatagh,\u201d the mother recalls.<\/p>\n
Alla Abrahamyan is a military communication agent. When the war broke, she was standing in a line for cheese, to get just a piece, to have something for her sons, when they are released home:<\/p>\n
\u201cI ran to my sister\u2019s and my brother\u2019s kids straightaway, while keeping dialing Arsen; he wouldn\u2019t answer my calls\u2026 And I was unable to reach Samvel; I knew his place was out of radio coverage. I called one of my acquaintances and told him I had not heard from Arsen for a while; he did not know Arsen was in Tchankatagh, and tried to encourage me saying I shouldn\u2019t worry about him; but the Tchankatagh direction was under shelling and the village was already taken. I said Arsen was there, my acquaintance was shocked and hang up the phone on me\u2026 I put on my uniform and ran to the unit, the inner communication was my last hope,\u201d Alla recalls.<\/p>\n
Alla managed to talk to her elder son. Yet, there were no news from Arsen. The loss of contact with Arsen for several hours in a row worried Samvel, too, but he would try to not show own feelings when talking to Alla.<\/p>\n
\u201cSamvel was very reserved and serious, and would never share about matters related to his service, neither would he let anyone ask him about it. Let alone calling to the unit he served in or asking about him: I wouldn\u2019t dare to. I did not even know the name of his commander, I heard it by chance. But that day he did not ask me why had I called him, rather he would speak to me softly, assuring his was ok and saying I did not need to worry about him, and should rather try to find Arsen. And then, as the tears burst out of my eyes, he said, don\u2019t worry, mum, Arsen will come out of somewhere soon, he is not someone to be lost. I had the feeling he had either appeared in a tough situation, or had been captured by Turks. And I dreaded this thought.\u201d<\/p>\n
Arsen was very different from his brother, Samvel. Arsen was outgoing and cheerful in as much as Samvel was reserved and serious. And Alla had an inner feeling Arsen would soon show.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n It was the evening of the same day, around 8:10 pm, information came about the air attack on the military unit where Samvel was serving. Alla had the last call with her elder son pleading him to take care of oneself\u2026 The contact with Samvel was lost soon after.<\/p>\n Alla\u2019s military friends would try to calm her down saying there might had been damage to communication line, and her sons were most probably fine; but the mother\u2019s heart wouldn\u2019t lie to her.<\/p>\n Alla set up through the night of 19 September waiting for a call from Samvel. Despite her colleagues\u2019 calls to hide in the shelter of her military unit, she stayed up there. In the morning, the Azerbaijani shells had already reached their unit, too, but she would sit motionless, with her hand on the receiver of the phone\u2026<\/p>\n \u201cIn the early hours of the day I still had no news from my boys. I was shivering, I couldn\u2019t feel my feet, couldn\u2019t move, as if I hadn\u2019t gone through two wars, and I had that deadly feeling in my heart. It was about 1pm, when a ceasefire was announced, everyone left; I stayed there with the young conscripts,\u201d Alla recalls.<\/p>\n Something had to be done to get rid of the bad feeling and the murderous uncertainty. The head of the communication unit was Alla\u2019s last hope. Anticipating to hear something about Samvel, Alla called him. Yet, her call remained unanswered.<\/p>\n In the evening, she went to the commander to ask his permission to let Samvel leave the post to help her search Arsen. Alla understood the true meaning of the commander\u2019s words: \u201cOk, go home, we will bring you back tomorrow\u201d, and why exactly the call back from the head of the communication unit that was never made.<\/p>\n In the morning of 21 September Alla\u2019s mother Alvina told her injured soldiers from Samvel\u2019s unit were brought down the posts. In fact, those were bodies of killed soldiers, but Alvina had decided she would not break the news to Alla right away.<\/p>\n Samvel\u2019s name was there, in the third list of those, whose bodies were brought to the Martakert morgue. Alla was the one to identify his body.<\/p>\n \u201cI was waiting for him to go together to look for Arsen. Who knew I would find him first.\u201d<\/p>\n The morgue in Martakert was non-operating due to electric power outage; the road to Stepanakert was already blocked by Azerbaijanis, and there was shortage of coffins. There was no opportunity to keep further the bodies, and so bodies were buried whenever and whichever way it proved possible. It was decided to burry Samvel\u2019s body without coffin, too.<\/p>\n \u201cI told them: I don\u2019t care how you do it, but you have to have my boy transported to Yerablur. They would say there were no coffins, and I said, I didn\u2019t care, I said they should find wood logs somehow, make a coffin, because my son was going to be buried in Yerablur.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/a>