YEREVAN. - Taking medical workers hostage is an unprecedented phenomenon in Armenia, Deputy Health Minister Vahan Poghosyan told journalists Wednesday, referring to hostage-taking of four doctors by the armed group seizing the Erebuni police station.
In his words, those doctors have been providing medical assistance to these people for ten days. “It is necessary to come up with a humanitarian approach and allow the doctors carry out their work. Some of those people have fought in Karabakh, suffering various wounds, and the same doctors helped them. The doctors cannot be banned from carrying out their working duties or be forced to carry them out in such a tense situation. The healthcare system is now angry about that phenomenon, since they are our partners,” Poghosyan stressed.
According to the Health Ministry press-service, doctors Norayr Tevanyan and Salvador Khechoyan, paramedic David Tonoyan and nurse Malina Markaryan were taken hostage while carrying out their professional duties in the seized police station.
