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Time in Yerevan: 11:07,   29 March 2024

‘Decapitated, mutilated bodies everywhere’ – How two children survived the Baku Pogrom horrors

‘Decapitated, mutilated bodies everywhere’ – How two children survived the Baku Pogrom 
horrors

WARNING: The article contains extreme graphic descriptions of violence and may be disturbing to some readers

YEREVAN, JANUARY 14, ARMENPRESS. In 1988, the pogroms against the Armenian population of Baku resumed, with the developments reminding the massacres of Armenians in Baku in 1905 and 1918.

The new wave of massacres of the Armenian population reached its culmination in 1990 January 13-19. The number of murdered Armenians or victims who died as a result of the pogroms in 1988-1990 in Baku reaches at least 500-600, while nearly 30,000 Armenians were killed in overall the three large pogroms.

The existing facts and eyewitness accounts show that the pogroms were premeditated and planned.

The Avchiyan family is among those who survived the horrors of 1990 January.

Sisters Susanna and Liliana Avchiyan recall that in those days the attitude towards Armenians had abruptly changed following the 1988 Sumgait Pogrom: even their own neighbors had become hostile, Armenians were being insulted, their balcony was being egged, they were followed, accused for things they never committed and were told to leave the city.

On January 13th, Susanna and Liliana – together with their mother Svetlana – are planning to visit a friend to celebrate Old New Year. Suddenly, they hear someone knock on the door and shout: “where are the Armenians, where are those Armenians. We know there are many Armenians in this neighborhood”. Svetlana begins to hold the door with all her strength and screams at her daughters to escape the apartment. The sisters are able to safely jump out of the window into the street, hoping that their mother will do the same. But Svetlana is unable to flee.

Liliana recalls how before reaching a basement to seek shelter they tried to ask help, knocking on every single door in the building. Neither Russians, nor an elderly Armenian wife of an Azerbaijani man opened the door and refused to give them shelter in fear.

Susanna and Liliana, 14 and 12 years old at that time, had no other choice but to hide in a basement with knee-high water and short circuit sparks coming from metal wires. As they were fearfully waiting for the night to come for the danger to somewhat decrease outside, they were listening to the gruesome screams from upstairs. Susanna particularly remembers the exact words one of the perpetrators told his accomplices while killing an Armenian: “he has golden teeth, let’s pull them out”.

With their mother’s last words in their mind “whatever happens, run and don’t come back for me”, the sisters come out of the basement only at midnight and start heading to the home of Raya, a school friend of Susanna’s. Susanna recalls that on their way they saw numerous dead bodies in the streets everywhere. The bodies were decapitated, naked, mutilated.

“Bodies were everywhere, uncle Zhora was living in the third floor, he was a professor, he was thrown out of the window. And then, children – children would stab him with knives. We saw a pregnant woman….her belly was cut open and the fetus was thrown out. Her ears were cut off for the earrings. We were just kids….and we were witnessing this”, Susanna said.

The same picture was in all other streets they passed through.

“The entire street was full of bodies, everything was on fire, screams were heard, there were naked fatally wounded or dead women. These perpetrators looked like they’ve just come out of the prison and were thirsty for blood or murder. For the first time I witnessed how someone is being raped…she was an elderly woman…..it was difficult to understand her age. One of them was raping, the others were looking. And then they gang raped her,” Susanna says.

Upon reaching Raya’s house, Susanna tells Liliana to stay there and decides to return for her mother. Raya also joins her, and they head back. They enter the apartment they had fled earlier, only to witness a horrifying scene: blood everywhere, and Susanna’s mother is missing.

New searches lead Susanna to her mother’s workplace, where she finds out that Svetlana’s boss had saved her after learning about the pogroms.

“Newspapers would then write about my mother. Her name was Svetlana Avichyan. Her director had saved her. At that time, she couldn’t remember who she was and what had happened. She was severely battered, she suffered concussion, her body was entirely covered in wounds, you couldn’t recognize her. Our mother was a very beautiful woman. And there she was, swollen lips, broken nose, she was unable to open her eyes, she was nearly deafened by the multiple blows she suffered on her ears when the attackers wanted to steal her earrings. They had even tried to cut off her ears”, Liliana said.

Sveta’s recovery, both physical and mental, took quite some time.

Susanna vividly remembers how she was treating her wounds with tweezers trying to pull out the parts of cigarette butts – the perpetrators had tortured Svetlana by putting off cigarettes on her body.

After these events, for the rest of her life Sveta was only wearing long dresses to cover the multiple scars on her body.

“She was unable to forget, she couldn’t sleep at nights. She told us how many men had raped her, when they thought she was dead…she was a different person. After this, she wasn’t the same, happy person we knew before…”, Susanna said.

Eventually, the Avichyan family was able to reach the United States. “We have never celebrated New Year since”, Susanna said.

The complete interview, as well as other eyewitness accounts are available in the online version of the 2016 Baku Tragedy in Eyewitness Accounts: Volume One” book.

Edited and translated by Stepan Kocharyan

 








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