Azerbaijani side fires at Red Cross car in Chinari village

The first call Aysor.am received today was from the administrator of Chinari village Samvel Saghoyan who said he had just returned from the fields.

“We harvested crops all night. We have no choice: they fire at us whenever we try to work in the fields in the daytime,” he said.

Many explain the recent intensification in Azerbaijan’s actions by the harvest season. The village administrator has repeatedly said that Azerbaijanis want one thing: to prevent the villagers from gathering in the harvest and deprive them of any means of living.

“We always managed to find a solution. We worked at night. This year we decided to ask the Red Cross to be present when we use a combine harvester,” Saghoyan said.

“On July 26 Red Cross representatives came to our village. We took the new combine harvester of neighboring Movses village so as to work while Red Cross employees are present. The Azerbaijani side fired shots in the direction of Red Cross representatives. So those people had to quickly leave the village. They wrote something in their notebooks and left. Just imagine, they even fired the Red Cross car,” Saghoyan said, adding that a side-view mirror of the ICRC car was smashed and a bullet left a hole in the car’s flag.

The village administrator said that despite intensified shootings, life continues its natural course in Chinari.