Exactly 20 days ago, the latest group of Armenian hostages was released by Azerbaijan without any prior notice to families: Vicken Euljekjian (now age 46), Gevork Sujyan (age 36), Davit Davtyan (age 32) and Vagif Khatchatryan (age 70). All four Armenians were not prisoners of war, but post-war hostages, as they were captured after the announcement of the trilateral Ceasefire at midnight on 10 November 2020. Vicken Euljekjian’s car was captured by two Azerbaijani soldiers just hours after the Ceasefire, near Shushi. A day later, on 11 November 2020, Gevorg Sujyan and Davit Davtyan, friends and charity workers were delivering food and medicine to Stepanakert, when they were captured in their vehicle near Shushi. Meanwhile, the fourth hostage, 68-year-old Vagif Khatchtryan, pensioner from Artsakh, was kidnapped on 29 July 2023 by Azerbaijani soldiers from the Red Cross vehicle on the border crossing and taken to Baku prison. Vagif’s health had vastly deteriorated in prison.
Lebanese Armenian Vicken Euljekjian’s health has deteriorated critically during five years in the hands of Azerbaijani prison guards. There are signs of inhumane treatment on his body, and suffering engraved in his gaze. Vicken’s blood pressure is dangerously high and above 200 most of the time. Vicken’s hearing has significantly deteriorated (due to regular kicking on his head), with hearing loss of 54% in the left ear and 63% in the right. His broken neck is supported by a rigid bandage, his spine in constant pain and his ribs are cracked from kicks by Azeri jailers. ‘Vicken can hardly walk, I take him to the fresh air, but he cannot go beyond few meters,’ told Vicken’s wife Linda. Yet surprisingly, he was released after a day at Muratzan hospital in Yerevan, where hostages are usually examined after their return from captivity. Meanwhile, it is obvious that he requires months of intensive treatment and probably surgeries. Now with his wife Linda by his side, Vicken is under medical supervision.
Before the January hostage release, our last telephone conversation with Linda in Lebanon took place on 1 January to wish her family a Happy New Year; she was tearful and sounded discouraged, doubting that Vicken would ever be freed. So, with Linda we decided to contact (again) the Americans once the festive period was over, begging for their assistance. After numerous letters sent to the White House in the past year, there was a glimpse of hope from Trump Administration…Among other complex political factors, the American involvement at the highest level had certainly played its part in the recent hostage release. Exactly two weeks later, Vicken’s name emerged among the names of four hostages to be released on 14 January. Yet with the bitter memory about Vicken’s false liberation in December 2023, there was still a huge suspicion hanging in the air that this could be another ‘false alarm’.
During his five-year-long imprisonment, Vicken’s mother Mrs. Beatrice, passed away of heart attack in April 2023. Her pain was immense and the only consolation was Vicken’s rare phone calls from his Baku prison. Repeatedly, the Red Cross had been denied access to Armenian hostages for several months, leaving families in complete disarray and despair. Vicken’s letters home to his mother, wife and children were written in Western Armenian in a beautiful handwriting, mostly telling them ‘to stay strong and never give up hope’. Mrs. Beatrice lived the last weeks and months of her life waiting for his son’s return from captivity… Her heart gave up before seeing Vicken free. Vicken’s beloved daughter, Christine, who was seventeen in 2020, had to grow up rapidly and fought fearlessly for her father’s release alongside his family.
As to Vicken’s childhood sweetheart and wife Linda (they were married in 2000 in the Armenian Catholic Church in Beirut), she had to carry the torch of liberation, to constantly defend his innocence. Linda kept the family united in turbulent times and during widespread financial hardship within the deteriorating political landscape in Lebanon. Continuing the struggle for Vicken’s liberation, Linda learnt more about Armenia and Artsakh, about the ethnic cleansing of Armenians in Artsakh. She was stoic, brave and honest in her stories on social media and interviews to the press, as she was certain about one thing: Vicken was an innocent, honest man, a civilian hostage, who happened to be at the wrong place at the wrong time…
Many activists, international organizations, politicians, human rights lawyers had worked on the cases of Armenian civilian hostages and POWs, who were nonetheless sentenced to 10, 15 and 20 years of imprisonment after sham Baku trials. In the last five years, dozens of captives have been released by Azerbaijani side in small groups, but hundreds of Armenian soldiers and civilians are still missing, according to human rights lawyers who represent those cases. While there are still 19 civilian hostages and POWs held by Azerbaijan, caution and discretion at this point are necessary to protect their lives in incarceration and to foresee their release in coming months.
By a strange coincidence, the logo of our humanitarian group, created in January 2021, is a dove, like the birds Vicken used to feed from prison window. ‘The guards thought I was crazy giving my ratio of bread to the birds’, he told on the phone, ‘but watching those birds was my only joy in the prison cell’. Now Vicken feeds birds from his Yerevan window, and picks up and hugs the homeless kittens in his neighborhood.
Our own campaign for the liberation of Armenian civilian hostages and prisoners of war started five years ago, in January 2021 with silent protests, letters, and meetings with political and religious leaders, and a global petition to world leaders that has gathered around 45,000 signatures. Yet nobody expected that it would take five years and more for the release of innocent hostages, who have become bargaining chips for all political sides. The human rights of hostages and their families have been demoted and disregarded in this increasingly lawless and unjust world we are currently witnessing.
After 1891 days of captivity, Vicken Euljekjian is back as a hero, and despite his mental suffering and physical injuries, he has returned to the Armenian soil armed with courage, determination and love for his homeland, his compatriots, known and unknown to him, who supported and believed continuously in his innocence and liberation.
Hasmik Seymour
British Armenian Humanitarian Group
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