On June 5, news spread that there was an incident on the Line of Contact between Armenian and Azerbaijani troops in the village of Yeraskh in Ararat marz (province), with two victims on the Armenian side. With the first wave of information came a wave of alarm that the village is emptying, people are being evacuated, Azerbaijanis are moving forward, and people are fleeing…

We immediately decided not to make calls to try to verify the information, but to get up and go, see with our own eyes, and find out on the ground what’s happening, especially when the scene is only an hour away. When an incident is happening 65 km from the capital, and there’s an opportunity to get information first-hand, there’s no point in sitting in the newsroom, in front of the computer, or placing your hope on phone calls.

We got to Yeraskh and realized that the word “evacuation” was, in fact, nonsense; the word “panic,“ to put it mildly, exaggerated. Gevorg Avchyan
Journalist, Yerkir.am