There's no place like home, yet for many Karabakh Armenians, that reality has been cruelly ripped away.
Imagine being forced to leave your birthplace in 48 hours, to abandon your home, your possessions, your job, the place where your family and ancestors have always lived, never to return.
It has been the grim reality for 115,000 Armenians after Azerbaijan's renewed military operation in September 2023.
Shocked and hungry, families fled to Armenia with whatever they could carry, marking the near-total depopulation of Karabakh's Armenians. As refugees, they now make up 4% of Armenia's population. This conflict left thousands needing shelter, food, health, and psychosocial support.
More than a year later, the European Union (EU) continues to provide assistance, but their needs and traumas have not been fully met nor healed. Armenians have welcomed refugees into their homes, avoiding camps, yet their new life there is a painful birth. Despite government and humanitarian efforts, only 28% have found work, and many others live in precarious conditions, moving between provinces in search of jobs and affordable housing.
Garineh Manukyan, head of a household of 7, lives in the province of Gegharkunik, not far from the border with Azerbaijan. The family initially crowded into a small house. They are now accommodated in a bigger house that needs repairs.
When they first arrived, food was the main problem as it was hard to come by and very expensive. The stress and lack of quality food affected the family's health for months. Her daughter’s husband died during the exodus in a gas station explosion that killed many.
Despite Garineh's husband's temporary job, he does not earn enough money to make ends meet. She was pleasantly surprised and relieved to learn that her family had been identified to receive a food card from the United Nations’ World Food Programme (WFP).
With this card, Garineh could buy pasta, vegetables and fruit. But her diet also includes meat and eggs, which she can now afford to feed her family. The EU funded this food card solution, delivered through its partner WFP to 40,000 Karabakh Armenian refugees, to meet their immediate food needs for 4 months in 2024.
Asya lives in Goris, Syunik province, one of the poorest in the country. Her living conditions are challenging but are somewhat alleviated by the cash assistance she receives from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), which is also supported by the EU. She has been able to meet her basic shelter and household needs, such as mattresses, beds, and blankets.
"We are adapting here, but if the aid is reduced or stopped, we won't be able to survive. My dream is to go back to Nagorno-Karabakh and not depend on this aid. We talk all the time about what we left behind. We’ll never forget it”,
The life of a refugee is often complicated by the loss of identity documents and the lack of a clear legal status. With the support of the EU, UNHCR has developed legal awareness sessions among them, and Karin has access to the refugee identity card delivered by the Government’s Migration and Citizenship Service and UNHCR to 110,000 refugees. This document and status, in turn, gives them the possibility to receive cash assistance and other basic services such as health, education and housing, just like any other Armenian citizen.
Since the outbreak of the war in and around Nagorno Karabakh in 2020, the European Commission has allocated a total of €38.4 million in humanitarian aid to provide emergency support to the affected people. These operations also ensured much-needed humanitarian demining in populated areas and has provided mine risk education to people at risk.
With Armenia's harsh winters, providing vulnerable refugees with living conditions that protects them from the cold, such as warm clothing and brickettes for heating is still an urgent need to this day.