Demonstrators in Yerevan protest outside ICRC office

YEREVAN, JULY 31, ARMENPRESS. A group of demonstrators have blocked the entrance to the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) Armenia office in Yerevan in protest of the Azerbaijani kidnapping of a Nagorno-Karabakh patient who was being evacuated by the ICRC.

The demonstrators want to have a meeting with the head of the ICRC Armenia office.

A 68-year-old medical evacuee from Nagorno-Karabakh, Vagif Khachatryan, was kidnapped by Azerbaijani border guards while being transported by the ICRC to Armenia for treatment . The Armenian foreign ministry said the Azerbaijani actions amount to war crime.

The demonstrators said that the ICRC ought to regulate its functions because at this moment the organization is unable to ensure the safety of the people of Nagorno-Karabakh.

“The International Committee of the Red Cross can ask any organization to ensure its free movement, even by using measures of force, however they allow the kidnapping to take place. If the Red Cross knew that it could be obstructed it should have applied to any security organization to ensure its free movement,” one of the demonstrators, who has been a long-time ICRC volunteer, told reporters.