Note – This article was published in The Valley of Death by Tatul Hakobyan. The article was first published in 2017.
During the first Karabakh war of 1991-1994, as well as since the ceasefire of 1994, the overall number of deaths from the Armenian side accounts to 9700 people. These are not official numbers, but are based on my personal research. The numbers also don’t include civilian losses, which Armenia and Artsakh suffered during this period. During the last months I have published several articles about this highly emotional topic, in an attempt to present a comprehensive and clear picture about our losses.
Based on my research, which may not be complete, the figure of casualties in Artsakh has been around 3300 people. This number shows, that the biggest burden during the first Karabakh war has been on the shoulders of our compatriots in Artsakh. This is natural, because the war was taking place in Artsakh, thus the people of Karabakh were fighting for their survival, defending their homes, their dignity and the security of their families. 2700 out of this 3300 were killed during the war, while around 600 people fell victims of different escalations since the ceasefire of 1994.
Yet another 1500 civilians died during and after the war, which amounts the overall losses to around 4800 people in a territory which had only 140 thousand population.
Also, while putting the numbers together, I have also excluded the missing persons. The reason for this is that as much as we may think that there is a high probability of the missing persons being dead, we cannot state it as a fact. Who knows, maybe one day some of them, or even a single person will return to his family.
The number of deaths from Armenia during and after the war amounts to around 6500. This figure is counted through 26 years of war and relative peace, from 1990 to 2016 including the 4-day war of April 2016. We will refrain from classifying the deaths by dividing before and after the year 1994, as this is an ongoing process and we may have issues with regards to the methodology of the research.
Another important point is that I have not paid enough attention to the numbers of people who became disabled or were severely wounded because of Karabakh war and who may have lost their lives after the war. Should we include these people in the overall list of Karabakh war casualties? I believe that we should, thus I have decided to include those people in this publication as part of our losses as a result of the war in Artsakh.
This is the reason why I came up with the number of almost 10 thousand casualties between 1990 and 2016. In my previous publication I presented the number of 2000 as the figure for the lost lives after the ceasefire of 1994. This number again is incomplete, as it does not include all cases of deaths at the time of active military escalation and relative peace.
And finally, we will also present the numbers of Diaspora Armenians, who lost their lives during this war. A topic, which is also often used by politicians for various reasons. Here, we also have to make it clear of what we understand by Diaspora. Can Javakhk, which gave dozens of lives in the mountains of Karabakh be considered as Diaspora? Similarly, do we consider Armenians from Russia and former Soviet republics who gave their lives during the Karabakh war as Diaspora? Yet another issue comes when you try to understand how to classify and Armenian, who was born in Tehran, moved to Soviet Armenia and fell victim to the war in Artsakh, are they representing Diaspora or not? This is yet another important topic for research, which we will continue and will present once it is ready to publish.
We can say that the overall number of Diaspora Armenians who died during the war in Artsakh equals to around 20 people. During the last couple of years several organizations including media outlets have been monitoring casualties of the Armenian side on Armenian-Azerbaijani border and the line of contact with Artsakh. Among those organizations are “Razminfo”, Helsinki Citizens Assembly of Vanadzor, “Peace Dialogue” NGO and others. There have been years when we found out about our losses in the military from Armenia’s Defense ministry, or during press conferences held by the minister of defense, as well as US State Department yearly reports.
In 1990-ies one of the main organizations the monitoring of military casualties were conducted by Helsinki Committee of Armenia, NGOs working in the area of human rights as well as independent experts and individuals. We have combined reports and information published by above mentioned organizations to get a general picture of the number of soldiers who lost their lives after the ceasefire of 1994.
The biggest number of losses was in the three years which followed the ceasefire, from 1995 to 1998. This is probably understandable, considering the fact that right after the ceasefire was reached, there were numerous clashes along the line of contact. The defense infrastructure along the border was being created and there were acres of land filled with mines.
The highest number of casualties after the ceasefire agreement was in 2016, because of the 4-day war in 2016.
In an article published by Armenia’s Helsinki Committee in 2002, which was also reflected in Human Development report published yearly by the UN in Armenia. Before this, based on Armenia’s and Artsakh’s defense ministry records, between 1994-1998 the number of Armenian servicemen dying on Armenian-Azerbaijani front had been 800 people. Neither Helsinki Committee of Armenia, nor any other organization suggest any number of casualties between May 12 and December 31 of 1994.
The picture of the next couple of years is the following 1995 – 324 deaths 1996 – 260 deaths 1997 – 217 deaths 1998 – 196 deaths. In my own archive I have two other figures about the number of deaths of 1998, first is 151 and second is 171. The latter was also announced as a casualty number by Serzh Sargsyan in 1999. Also from my personal archives, I have 86 as a figure, while according to Armenia’s Helsinki Committee that number was 93 people.
Starting from year 2000 the number of deaths in Armenia’s military begins to get lower. In some cases, significantly lower. So, in 2000 we found three different figure of military casualties – 72 is one of those, another one is 111, while Serzh Sargsyan officially announced about over 100 deaths during that year.
In 2001, we also see two very different numbers from each other. One of those numbers is 52 people, while another one is 92.
In 2002 we first counted 50 deaths and by the end of the year 62 casualties were reported.
Between 2003 and 2007 our losses went down, with 2003 having 40 people, 2004-38, 2005-47 (this figure was presented by Armenia’s defense ministry) and 2006 with 33 deaths. This last figure was also presented by Armenia’s defense ministry, while military prosecutor’s office suggested that number to be at 36.
2007 had even less cased on defense ministry numbers, that number of 31, while there was a difference between this number and the one that the military prosecutor’s office suggested – 50.
In 2008, based on the data presented by the military prosecutor’s office Armenia lost 71 soldiers. US State Department also presented a report on this issue, suggesting that number to be at 69.
Similarly, in 2009 Armenia’s military prosecutor’s office announced about 43 deaths in the military, while the State Department came with one less at 42.
2010 is the only year, when four different institutions give the same number of casualties in the army. Armenia’s defense ministry, the military prosecutor’s office, Helsinki Citizen’s Assembly Vanadzor office and the Department of State report the same figure, which is 54. However, one organization, Peace Dialogue NGO suggested a higher number at 61.
In 2011 army casualty monitoring results at varying numbers by different organizations again. Peace Dialogue NGO claims this number to be 42, Armenia’s military prosecutor’s office and “Raminfo” website both recorded 36 deaths in the military, while the defense ministry and Helsinki Citizen’s Assembly have that number at 39.
The next year – 2012, again small differences in numbers appear. The Peace Dialogue NGO suggests 54 deaths, “Razminfo” website has 52, Helsinki Citizen’s Assembly Vanadzor office counts our losses at 50, while the defense ministry and military prosecutor’s office published 36 casualties during the year 2012.
Number of lost lives in 2013 are counted as follows – Peace Dialogue NGO – 32, defense ministry, military prosecutor’s office and “Razminfo” – 30, Helsinki Citizen’s Assembly Vanadzor office – 31.
2014 three organizations “Razminfo”, Helsinki Citizen’s Assembly Vanadzor office and Peace Dialogue NGO reported 46 deaths, defense ministry – 45, the military prosecutor’s office – 44.
2015 comes up with contradicting figures as well. “Razminfo”, Helsinki Citizen’s Assembly Vanadzor office and Peace Dialogue NGO report the number of deaths in the military to be 76 people, while defense ministry and the military prosecutor’s office – 57.
In 2016, the year when the 4-day war took place, Helsinki Citizen’s Assembly Vanadzor office and Peace Dialogue NGO claim that Armenian military lost 162 of its servicemen, “Razmino” website gives a lower number at 147. The latter also suggests that besides regular military casualties there were 18 volunteers who passed away that year.
If we put these numbers together from 1994 to 2016, we see that our human losses in the military amount to around 2000 people in 22 years. These figures may have small errors and cannot be viewed as official data, however this is very close to what we have had during the last two decades. The best source for of information for deaths in the military is indeed the ministry of defense, which has much bigger capacity to collect data and suggest close to exact figures.
During the first Karabakh war, the number of civilians who lost their lives in Artsakh is around 1500 people. Another 2700 people were killed as freedom fighters during the military escalations. These are people who volunteered to defend their homes and families during Azerbaijani attacks. Another 300 people from Karabakh died after the ceasefire agreement of 1994, while the number of Armenians from Armenia who died in Artsakh is around 2034 people.
Besides Artsakh, over 1300 people died on the bordering areas of Armenia and Azerbaijan. The number of missing persons from Armenia and Artsakh amounts to 600 people.
During the first Karabakh war, there were also non-Armenian citizens who lost their lives in Artsakh. The number of the people from Ukraine, Russia and other former Soviet states, who died at this war is 36.
And last but not least, Diaspora Armenians who sacrificed their lives for Artsakh is 4 people. Among those dying in the Karabakh war there is also a dozen of Iranian Armenians, but these were people who moved to Armenia before the war. The data presented in this article does not include the numbers for the years 2015 and 2016.
March 21 – February 22, 2017
