Armenian Mother Shot by Azerbaijani Soldier Says Her Children Would Be Dead Had She Waited for Police
An Armenian mother who was shot while fighting off an armed Azerbaijani soldier inside her home says she and her two children would not have survived had she not intervened. Speaking publicly about the October 1 attack for the first time, she also questioned why authorities failed to warn residents that an Azerbaijani serviceman was believed to have crossed into Armenia two days earlier.
Ani Avetisyan, 39, described the confrontation in an interview with Azatutyun, the Armenian Service of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, from her hospital bed in Yerevan.
Avetisyan said she rushed from the nearby town of Sisian to her home in Shaki, a village in southern Armenia’s Syunik province, after learning that an armed stranger had entered the house. When she arrived, she found him pointing an assault rifle at her children.
The man, later identified as Azerbaijani serviceman Nasimi Musayev, fired three shots during the struggle, according to Avetisyan.
She said the first shot missed her. When he turned the weapon toward her son, she grabbed the rifle to stop him. The second shot struck her left hand, severing her thumb and severely injuring her other fingers.
The soldier then threw her onto a bed and began hitting her. Despite her injuries, Avetisyan fought back with a knife while trying to get her children out of the house.
She told her daughter to open the gate and urged her son to escape, but he refused to leave.
“At that moment, he pointed the gun at my chest to shoot me. I forcefully pushed it down, and the bullet hit my leg,” she recalled.
Avetisyan said the soldier tried to fire again while she was on the ground but appeared to have run out of ammunition. He attempted to reload before fleeing the house. Police arrived about five minutes later, she said.
“If I hadn’t reacted at that moment, neither my children nor I would be alive today,” Avetisyan said.
According to her account, the soldier had held her children at gunpoint for approximately 15 minutes before she reached the house. She said she did not know he was Azerbaijani because he remained silent throughout the confrontation.
Avetisyan, who faces three more surgeries, said the attack might have been avoided if authorities had warned residents about the missing soldier.
Armenia’s National Security Service said Azerbaijani authorities notified Yerevan on September 29 that a serviceman had left his military unit and might have crossed into Armenian territory. Musayev was apprehended in Shaki on October 1, after the shooting.
“If they had warned us, I wouldn’t have sent my children to school, and we wouldn’t have stayed in Shaki,” she said.
She also questioned why police arrived after her, despite receiving an emergency call. According to Avetisyan, the police station in Sisian was closer to her home than the hotel from which she had traveled.
Her account comes days after Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan described the shooting as an “ordinary criminal incident” and said Avetisyan should have waited for police instead of confronting the armed man.
“I understand that a mother’s instinct is strong, but when the police are called, you have to wait for the police to act,” Pashinyan told parliament on October 7.
The prime minister’s comments drew criticism from opposition figures and others who questioned how an armed Azerbaijani soldier had managed to reach a civilian community despite authorities receiving advance notice of his possible border crossing.
Defense Minister Suren Papikyan subsequently acknowledged failures in the authorities’ handling of the incident, saying they had consequences and would lead to further action.
Musayev remains in pretrial detention on charges that include illegally crossing Armenia’s border, weapons smuggling, causing serious bodily harm with a firearm, illegal firearms offenses and violating the inviolability of a home.
Avetisyan and her children have been formally recognized as victims in the criminal investigation. All three, along with the Azerbaijani serviceman, have been questioned.
The government has not yet provided a full public explanation of how Musayev crossed the border, reached Shaki or avoided capture before the attack.
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