Frontier town is emptying
You will not meet beggars in the streets of Berd, a frontier town in Armenia's Tavush marz. Yet, it does not mean that people live in perfect conditions here.
"Isn't it begging when villagers approach the candidates during campaign visits and ask them for money?" says Marietta Manucharyan, Chairwoman of the Women of Utik NGO.
Locals believe that the lack of beggars does not suggest that people live in normal social conditions. Some of the schools do not have first graders.
"The reason is that the children do not have shoes or clothes to wear at school. The parents can only think about feeding their families," says Nina Adamyan, Chairwoman of the Sose Mayrer (Mothers) Association.
She says she has spent half of her life on the protection of this frontier town but today Berd is emptying because people are fleeing from starvation.
"You can rarely find men in households," she said.
Sergey Abgaryan, a doctor at the local military registration and enlistment office, says not only the town, but all frontier villages are emptying before his eyes. Few are privileges in border settlements that live under the threat of bombardment.
"Even if the soldiers stand hand in hand, they will be unable to protect the border once the villages are empty," he said.
Tickets and private houses are sold in different parts of the town. A cow head is also put up for sale in one of the central streets.
The article was written within the framework of a visit to the frontier villages organized by the Institute for War and Peace Reporting (IWPR). On March 24-26, a group of journalists visited Tavush marz to cover the problems of frontier villages.
