At this moment, there is no other person to record that the state owes them anything. Armenia’s Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said this today in Shirakamut village of Lori Province, referring to the issue of compensation for people who suffered from the devastating earthquake of 1988.

"Once again we will look at the papers of those people who say that they have been treated unfairly for some reason, we will differentiate whether there is such an obligation or not," Pashinyan said, answering a villager. “Because there are people who got the money, bought the house and sold it for some reason, and now don’t have [it]; the state has no obligation to those persons. We will find out those to whom it will appear to have an obligation; how to solve their problem.”

One of the most brutal tragedies in modern Armenian history took place on December 7, 1988. At 11:41am that day, the northern regions of the then Armenian SSR were shaken by a devastating earthquake, whose was epicenter was Spitak. More than 25,000 people were killed, tens of thousands were injured, and hundreds of thousands were left homeless.