YEREVAN. - I conclude this festive week with pain and sense of regret, since we, our entire people, lost four servicemen in the army, a fact which not only could but also should not have happened, Minister of Defense of Armenia, Vigen Sargsyan, said in a video message addressed to servicemen.

“In the beginning of last week, three servicemen, who passed quite a long and complicated path of service, took a car attached to one of them and left the military base of their own volition, violating the basic requirements of the service charter. The search operation, which was launched after noticing their absence at the morning lineup, revealed that they suffered an accident and appeared in a canal,” he said. 

In the minister’s words, according to the preliminary information, the second tragic incident took place as a result of a quarrel between two servicemen carrying out military vigil and over the violation of the vigil rules by one of them, the result being a rifle shot with fatal outcome.

“Still another incident took place in Yerevan in the daytime. Several servicemen, who lost connection with the reality and considered themselves above the law, entered into a quarrel with a police officers, who stopped them for drunk driving, showing conduct unsuitable to an officer and serviceman, in a public area, in front of our compatriots,” Sargsyan noted.  

He also stressed that all the three incidents are the consequence of negligence, lack of discipline, misplaced self-confidence and failure to fulfill service obligations. “Internal investigation is underway into all three incidents, and I will hold strictly accountable those commanders, officers and persons in charge, who had to make the emergence of such situations impossible,” Sargsyan concluded.