make preferableYEREVAN. – The interment of Nagorno-Karabakh Republic (NKR) Defense Army serviceman Robert Mkrtchyan, 20, who was killed in the recent shelling by the Azerbaijani armed forces, was held Monday at Yerablur Military Pantheon in Armenia’s capital city of Yerevan (PHOTOS).
Senior military officers, soldiers as well as Mkrtchyan’s relatives, friends, and neighbors attended the funeral ceremony.
His grandmother, Emma Arakelyan, told Armenian News-NEWS.am that Robert was a clever, patriotic and smart boy, and he always wanted to serve in the Armenian army.
“I don’t know what to say,” noted Arakelyan. “And he died for the homeland.”
On September 25, the Azerbaijani armed forces shelled one of the northeastern protection areas of the NKR Defense Army unit. The fire was opened from Turkish-made reactive rocket propelled howitzers (TR-107). Consequently, NKR Defense Army soldiers Norayr Khachatryan (born in 1995), Robert Mkrtchyan (born in 1995), Harut Hakobyan (born in 1997), and Karen Shahinyan (born in 1997) died from shrapnel wounds. In addition, there are sixteen wounded military servicemen.
And NKR President Bako Sahakyan signed decrees, whereby the aforesaid fallen soldiers were posthumously awarded with the Medal for Military Service.
Photo by Arsen Sargsyan/NEWS.am
