Fleeing Ethnic Cleansing
This is a true story.
Imagine waking up really early in the morning as a 6-year-old girl in 1988 in the country of Azerbaijan, Baku, to your dad shaking you and your brother and he is telling them to pack as fast as you can and he does this without telling you why or what is going on. She gets up and starts to pack some clothes, toys, and other meticulous things, still not sure what she is packing for she thinks she might be going on a vacation or a trip to a family member’s house. Finally her mom tells her that she needs to take the most important things to her because there is a good chance that she will not be coming back to her home. Gayana and her family got as much packed into their car a Vaz 6 as they could and then they were on the road.
Gayana, confused about what had just happened, asked her dad what was going on and he told her that when he was heading to work that morning he was stopped by a Muslim neighbor who said that there was a group of Muslim men on their way to the condo complex, and they needed to leave. In 1988 in Azerbaijan, ethnic cleansing had started, and it was the Muslims doing the ethnic cleaning against the Christians and in Azerbaijan the majority of people where Muslims. Gayana and her family are not Muslims, they are Christians and that is why their Muslim friend warned them to leave so they were not killed by the group that was coming to their complex.
With Gayana and her family barely getting out of their home in time before the Muslim group got there, they did not really know what their next step was going to be. Should they go to a different town or city? Should they hide and hope something good would happen? For example, the United States or United Nation might involved and stop the ethnic cleansing. Her dad Igor and her mom Barbara did not think that the U.S. or U.N. would send soldiers to Azerbaijan, the only thing they heard of them doing was setting up a lottery in which only a very few lucky people would get picked and taken to the U.S. Hiding was not really a option because the ethnic cleansing was happening everywhere in the country.
The only option for her family was probably one of the most dangerous options and that was to escape and cross the border that was heavily guarded by the Muslim Military. At first her dad Igor tried to bribe his way out of the country because he had a good amount of money on him, but the bribing did not really work to well. It only got them a safe place to stay that was close to the border of Armenia. They stayed in a house until night fall and her mom and dad decided that it was time to take their chance and try and escape, they got into their little car and headed towards the Armenian border and when they got close her mom got in the back seat with her and her brother and she told them “to stay down and that she loved them both very much,” Then she laid on top of them. Gayana remembers very clearly what happened next: her dad pushed on the gas pedal and got to the fastest speed he could to drive through the border, and when they got close, all she could hear was tons of gun shots and her car being hit multiple times by the bullets. She remembers being so scared that they would not make it across the border or worse, that they would all be killed.
Her family was one of the lucky ones because they made it across the border and nobody was hurt. They made their way to a refugee camp which was a bunch of tents in a large open area. There was so many Christians escaping to Armenia due to the ethnic cleansing that Armenia did not have enough help or supplies to be able to assist everybody with food, clothes or even water, but none of this mattered to Gayana or her family. They were just happy to be out of Azerbaijan and that nobody was hurt or even worse, killed, during their escape.
This is a true story.
Imagine waking up really early in the morning as a 6-year-old girl in 1988 in the country of Azerbaijan, Baku, to your dad shaking you and your brother and he is telling them to pack as fast as you can and he does this without telling you why or what is going on. She gets up and starts to pack some clothes, toys, and other meticulous things, still not sure what she is packing for she thinks she might be going on a vacation or a trip to a family member’s house. Finally her mom tells her that she needs to take the most important things to her because there is a good chance that she will not be coming back to her home. Gayana and her family got as much packed into their car a Vaz 6 as they could and then they were on the road.
Gayana, confused about what had just happened, asked her dad what was going on and he told her that when he was heading to work that morning he was stopped by a Muslim neighbor who said that there was a group of Muslim men on their way to the condo complex, and they needed to leave. In 1988 in Azerbaijan, ethnic cleansing had started, and it was the Muslims doing the ethnic cleaning against the Christians and in Azerbaijan the majority of people where Muslims. Gayana and her family are not Muslims, they are Christians and that is why their Muslim friend warned them to leave so they were not killed by the group that was coming to their complex.
With Gayana and her family barely getting out of their home in time before the Muslim group got there, they did not really know what their next step was going to be. Should they go to a different town or city? Should they hide and hope something good would happen? For example, the United States or United Nation might involved and stop the ethnic cleansing. Her dad Igor and her mom Barbara did not think that the U.S. or U.N. would send soldiers to Azerbaijan, the only thing they heard of them doing was setting up a lottery in which only a very few lucky people would get picked and taken to the U.S. Hiding was not really a option because the ethnic cleansing was happening everywhere in the country.
The only option for her family was probably one of the most dangerous options and that was to escape and cross the border that was heavily guarded by the Muslim Military. At first her dad Igor tried to bribe his way out of the country because he had a good amount of money on him, but the bribing did not really work to well. It only got them a safe place to stay that was close to the border of Armenia. They stayed in a house until night fall and her mom and dad decided that it was time to take their chance and try and escape, they got into their little car and headed towards the Armenian border and when they got close her mom got in the back seat with her and her brother and she told them “to stay down and that she loved them both very much,” Then she laid on top of them. Gayana remembers very clearly what happened next: her dad pushed on the gas pedal and got to the fastest speed he could to drive through the border, and when they got close, all she could hear was tons of gun shots and her car being hit multiple times by the bullets. She remembers being so scared that they would not make it across the border or worse, that they would all be killed.
Her family was one of the lucky ones because they made it across the border and nobody was hurt. They made their way to a refugee camp which was a bunch of tents in a large open area. There was so many Christians escaping to Armenia due to the ethnic cleansing that Armenia did not have enough help or supplies to be able to assist everybody with food, clothes or even water, but none of this mattered to Gayana or her family. They were just happy to be out of Azerbaijan and that nobody was hurt or even worse, killed, during their escape.