A Canadian Armenian visited his dad's grave in a contested region. Now he's stuck in a humanitarian crisis
Contested region of Nagorno-Karabakh facing severe shortages of food, medicine
For nearly nine months, Andranik Pogosian, 31, has been trapped in the middle of what Canada calls a "deteriorating humanitarian situation."
Pogosian, who was born in Gander, N.L., and grew up in the U.S., entered the contested region of Nagorno-Karabakh — an ethnically Armenian enclave inside Azerbaijan — in late November 2022. He was visiting his father's grave in the capital, Stepanakert, also known as Khankendi.
He planned to leave by the new year and return to neighbouring Yerevan, Armenia, where he now lives and works as a businessman, manufacturing metal beams to construct houses. But in December, a group of Azerbaijanis claiming to be environmental activists set up a blockade on the so-called Lachin corridor, the only road connecting Nagorno-Karabakh to Armenia.
Later, the Azerbaijani military set up a checkpoint on the Hakari Bridge, which connects to the Lachin corridor. The combination has restricted the flow of essential goods, including food and medical supplies, between Armenia and the enclave. The UN says the blockade has led to a "dire humanitarian crisis."
Since the blockade and checkpoint went up, Pogosian has been unable to leave. Armenians living in Nagorno-Karabakh can't leave or enter through Azerbaijan.
Azerbaijan has denied there is a blockade, saying the "checkpoint" is necessary to prevent the road being used to smuggle weapons.
"I thought because I have a Canadian passport, it would be easier for me to leave, but that wasn't the case," said Pogosian in a phone interview from his father's rural home near the village of Noragyugh, in Askeran province.
The area he's in currently gets about six hours of electricity a day, he said, as the region faces rolling blackouts. Pogosian says he is surviving on one to two meals a day and has about one month's supply of toothpaste and soap that he nabbed in a trade on Facebook Marketplace.
"My friends have been helping me find stuff that is pretty scarce. A lot of things you can't buy from the store so you have to know who has the farm or whoever stores food. They then sell it to you unofficially," he said.
Pogosian told CBC that the nearby fruit trees have been picked bare, people are stealing from local farms and have been forced to barter for goods as the Nagorno-Karabakh government placed limits on withdrawals due to a cash shortage.
Not that it would make a difference, Pogosian added. "I am having excess amounts of money because there is nothing to buy."
A historically contested area
Knowing you can only cross the border with everything arranged officially, Pogosian says he reached out to the Canadian consulate in Armenia for help on June 29, but that the consulate said Canada is only able to evacuate citizens who are in need of medical assistance.
In an emailed statement to CBC News, Global Affairs Canada said it's aware "of a situation involving a Canadian Armenian in Nagorno-Karabakh" and that it's "providing consular assistance to the concerned individual through the appropriate channels."
Before Pogosian travelled there, the Canadian government had already issued a travel advisory for the region.
The ethnically Armenian enclave of around 120,000 people is internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan, but Armenia and Azerbaijan have fought for control of it since the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991.
Tensions reached a boiling point in 2020 during the second Nagorno-Karabakh war, which lasted 44 days and cost Armenia a significant amount of territory. It ended with the signing of a cease-fire agreement and the deployment of Russian peacekeepers, who still control the enclave today.
"This is a continuing collapse of the former Soviet Union," said Chris Kilford, Canada's former defence attaché to Azerbaijan.
Kilford says a number of factors, including Russia being distracted by the war in Ukraine, prompted Azerbaijan to try to make a renewed push for control of the region this summer.
'Whoever controls the aid controls the situation'
On Sept. 9, Reuters reported a deal was reached between the newly elected president of Nagorno-Karabakh, Samvel Shakhramanyan, and Azerbaijan to allow the transportation of aid on the Lachin Corridor and the Askeran-Aghdam route by the Russian Red Cross.
A Russian Red Cross truck carrying food and other supplies crossed from Azerbaijani-held territory into Nagorno-Karabakh region on Tuesday.
It was not immediately clear whether Azerbaijan had also allowed aid to enter from Armenia through the Lachin corridor, as promised in the agreement struck on Saturday. Meanwhile, French and Armenian aid shipments have been idling at the corridor's entrance for several weeks.
"Whoever controls the aid controls the whole situation," said Kilford.
Pogosian said he would not accept aid sent from Azerbaijan and neither would the people of Nagorno-Karabkh.
"They don't want a single vehicle to enter from Azerbaijan," said Pogosian.
Canada's growing interest
Recently, Canada has shown increased interest in the region, with the dispatch of two officials to assist in a European monitoring mission and the opening of a Canadian Embassy in Yerevan slated for October.
Canadian Foreign Minister Melanie Joly has expressed support for the people of Nagorno-Karabakh. At an Armenian community event in Montreal last month, Joly referred to the region as Artsakh, using the term favoured by ethnic Armenians who advocate for the region's secession from Azerbaijan.
For Pogosian, peace in Nagorno-Karabakh can't come soon enough. His parents fled after the collapse of the Soviet Union with the intent of settling in the U.S. Pogosian was born prematurely en route during a stop in Gander, and Canadian citizenship fell into his lap.
He lived in Queens, N.Y., until 2007, when he joined his father in Nagorno-Karabakh to help him run his metal roofing business. His father died in 2009, and Pogosian eventually settled in Armenia. Despite Nagorno-Karabakh's volatile situation, Pogosian has been in and out the region since 2015 and says he never experienced any threat to his safety until now.
"I am not too worried about myself because I am just one person," said Pogosian. "But I can see how hard it is for the people who have small kids. They are not able to get what they need for their families, and that is heartbreaking."
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With files from Reuters