Residents of Armenia’s Armavir Province held a demonstration and shut down the Yerevan-Armavir road, complaining that they haven’t been able to water their fields and gardens for two weeks due to the lack of irrigation water.

One of the demonstrators stated that the relevant authorities don’t know what’s going on and how much demand there is for water.

Deputy Head of the Water Committee Karen Daghbashyan presented the problem and mentioned that the government releases up to 170,000,000 cubic meters of water from Lake Sevan every year. “Until now, we had the waters coming from the rivers after the snowmelt. Due to lack of precipitation and the end of the snowmelt, the amount of water quickly reduced. Now the government has opened the reservoir of Marmarik until the government adopts a decision and the water is released from Lake Sevan and provided to the people. There is water now, and the demand is fully satisfied,” he said.

Asked why the villagers are complaining if there is enough water, the government official said villagers don’t know how to take turns to water their fields and gardens.

One of the villagers asked why the government had left the villagers without irrigation water for such a long time, if there was a solution to the issue. The villagers claimed that the issue can’t be solved completely so long as the water hasn’t been released from Lake Sevan.