YEREVAN. – Armenian Ambassador to Georgia Yuri Vardanyan had telephonic conversations with Governor Akaki Machutadze and Police Chief Teimuraz Kalandadze of the Samtskhe-Javakheti Province of Georgia, in connection with the tragic murders in Vachian village in the Akhalkalaki Region of the country.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Armenia informed Armenian News-NEWS.am that the Georgian side responded that an investigation is underway into this incident, and the suspect is detained.

As reported earlier, four members of an Armenian family—the mother, Ofelya, 37, and the three children: Seryozha, 7, Asya, 16, and Armine, 18, Kachotyan—on Sunday were found dead in their home in the aforesaid village in Javakhk.

Javakhk—Georgian name: Javakheti—is a predominantly-Armenian-populated part of Georgia’s southeastern Samtskhe-Javakheti Province.

Their neighbors had found the Kachotyans dead.

According to preliminary information, the assailant(s) had killed the mother and her daughters with a blunt instrument, and strangled the boy to death. 

The table and chairs of the house were lying on the floor, and the house was sooty with smoke.

The father of the family, Vaghinak Kachotyan, works in Russia.

A newly opened Turkish-Georgian state border runs along Vachian village.

Armenian News-NEWS.am has learned that the Georgian police on Monday detained three youth from the same village. They had entered the said Armenian family’s home to carry out burglary. After killing four victims, they had set the house on fire to hide their tracks.

Identity of the detained murder suspects, however, is not yet disclosed.