Naira Zohrabyan: Parents of Armenian soldiers not allowed into morgue to identify bodies

Armenian authorities are hindering parents who attempt to identify the bodies of their sons killed in the latest border escalation.

Former member of the Armenian parliament Naira Zohrabyan shared the information on her social network page, Caliber.Az reports citing the Armenian media.

Referring to the fact that Azerbaijan recently handed over 95 more bodies to Armenia, the politician wrote that most of the bodies were taken to the Martuni morgue. However, for two days now dozens of parents have been trying to enter the morgue to identify the bodies of their children, but they are not allowed to do so by security personnel. The relatives cannot participate in the identification without an escort from the investigators.

The problem is that, as Zohrabyan found out, photographs of the bodies have been handed over to a special operational response commission based in Yerevan. Parents who can identify their children from these photos are allowed to enter the morgue, but only if accompanied by an investigator. However, there are also bodies that cannot be identified from the photos, and the process requires identification by DNA. But many parents note that there are distinctive marks on their children's bodies: scars, and tattoos and they can identify them by these signs. In such a case, the parents can apply to the said commission, after which they will also be escorted to the morgue.

The whole problem is that nobody bothered to explain the sequence of these simple steps to relatives, says Zohrabyan. If they had been informed in time, if an official announcement had been made, they would not have come to Martuni and would not have had to wait for days and hours at the morgue in vain. The former MP believes this is a sign of indifference towards the grief-stricken parents.

"I understand that you don't care about parents who have lost their sons, as you showed yesterday on Yerablur, that you can beat up soldiers' mothers. But find at least one semi-literate person to explain to people the sequence of these elementary measures," the politician writes.