Head of Abovyan branch of Center for Forensic Expertise dismissed for "improper storage of the bodies and remains of the killed soldiers"

YEREVAN, June 2. /ARKA/. Armenia's Ministry of Health said today the manager of the Abovyan branch of the Center for Forensic Expertise and two employees were dismissed after an uproar caused by the photographs of sacks with the bodies of soldiers killed during last autumn war in the Nagorno-Karabakh, dumped in the corridor of the Center which appeared on social networks.

Acting Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, who is on visits to France and Belgium ordered an official investigation into these reports.

'The head of the Center received a severe reprimand," the Ministry of Health reported.

Earlier on Tuesday, the acting Health Minister Anahit Avanesyan apologized to all the relatives of those servicemen who were killed in the last autumn war in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict zone for "improper storage of the bodies and remains of the killed soldiers."

On Monday morning, a group of relatives of servicemen killed in Artsakh war blocked the Heratsi Street in the center of Yerevan where the central morgue is.

The protesters claimed there are inaccuracies in the official information on the number of bodies and fragments of the bodies of the victims. According to them, there are suspicions that the authorities for a long time hid the remains of the victims of the war in industrial refrigerators to avoid unnecessary hype.

On September 27, 2020, Azerbaijani armed forces, backed by Turkey and foreign mercenaries and terrorists, attacked Nagorno-Karabakh along the entire front line using rocket and artillery weapons, heavy armored vehicles, military aircraft and prohibited types of weapons such as cluster bombs and  phosphorus weapons.

After 44 days of the war, on November 9, the leaders of Russia, Azerbaijan and Armenia signed a statement on the cessation of all hostilities. According to the document, the parties stopped at where they were at that time. The town of Shushi, the districts of Agdam, Kelbajar and Lachin were handed over to Azerbaijan, with the exception of a 5-kilometer corridor connecting Karabakh with Armenia. 

A Russian peacekeeping contingent was deployed along the contact line in Karabakh and along the Lachin corridor. -0-