‘They tell us to work, but we already do’ Refugees from Nagorno-Karabakh face uncertain future as Armenia cuts back aid

Story by Rima Grigoryan for The Beet. Edited by Eilish Hart

In Yerevan, refugees from Nagorno-Karabakh are protesting the Armenian government’s decision to cut back a vital aid program for the fifth day straight. Armenia began offering this social support back in October 2023, immediately after Azerbaijan’s final offensive against the breakaway Republic of Artsakh displaced more than 100,000 ethnic Armenians from the region. (You can read past overage of these events from Meduza’s The Beet newsletter here and here.) Now, the government hopes to channel these funds away from working-age people, offering a housing assistance program instead. But as multimedia journalist Rima Grigoryan recounts through the story of one refugee family, buying or building is hardly an option for those struggling to make ends meet, even with the help of government aid. 

This story first appeared in The Beet, a monthly email dispatch from Meduza covering Central and Eastern Europe, the Caucasus, and Central Asia. Sign up here to get the next issue delivered directly to your inbox.

Marina and Inessa Aharonyan sit beside their 85-year-old mother’s bed, holding her frail hand and gently rubbing the thin skin over her veins. They hope that, at the very least, she can still feel their presence.

“She has been bedridden for a year now, and lately, she’s lost consciousness, too. But she wasn’t always like this. She worked as a teller at a bank in Hadrut and was one of the most active protesters in the 1988 Nagorno-Karabakh independence movement,” Marina recalls. “She would leave us at home, step away from work in the middle of the day, and rush to the city square to join the protests. In a way, we’re relieved that she doesn’t understand what’s happening now; that Artsakh, the land she fought for, is lost.”

Marina, 48, and her sister Inessa, 50, live with their mother Raya and their teenage nephew in a cramped 50-square-meter (538-square-foot) apartment, where even moving around is difficult. They often think about their old home: the two-story house their parents built in 1972, with the garden where Marina tended roses and the mulberry tree under which neighbors would gather for coffee on warm summer days. They were forced to leave it all behind during the 44-Day War in 2020, when Hadrut, along with much of Nagorno-Karabakh, fell to Azerbaijan.

“These are the keys to our house. I took them along with a blanket and this shirt. The metal is rusting, but this is all I have left. I feel like these keys are the last piece of hope, the last connection to Artsakh. I believe if we hold onto them, one day, they’ll take us home,” Marina says, turning the keys over in her hands.

Both sisters were teachers in Nagorno-Karabakh: Marina taught piano, and Inessa, Russian. The founders of the local cultural center, Dizak Art, relocated it to Yerevan after the fall of Hadrut, allowing Marina to keep her job. Inessa, however, could not continue her teaching career and now works in a store instead. They take turns caring for their elderly mother while the other is at work.

“We both have jobs, and we also receive 50,000 drams [about $125] each from the state, yet we barely manage to cover our expenses. The government gives us this money, but it goes straight to the landlord,” says Inessa. “If they stop the aid, I don’t know what we’ll do. We won’t be able to afford even this tiny apartment. They gave us refugee cards, but what’s the point if the only help we receive is about to be cut off?”

As The Beet reported previously, the Armenian government began offering financial aid to displaced persons from Nagorno-Karabakh in October 2023, after Azerbaijan carried out a blitz offensive that toppled the region’s separatist government and drove more than 100,000 ethnic Armenians from the enclave. Since then, nearly all Karabakh refugees have been eligible for 50,000 drams per month to cover living costs. (The program is commonly called “40+10,” since the payments are broken down as 40,000 drams for rent plus 10,000 drams for utilities.)

But late last year, the Labor and Social Affairs Ministry announced that starting in April 2025, the monthly payments would only be available to select groups. Now, only children under 18, elderly people over 63, families who lost their primary breadwinner, and those with certain disabilities will continue receiving payments — and even they will get less money than they did before. 

The decision has left many angry and uncertain about their future. For the vast majority of Karabakh refugees, this aid offered additional financial security, if not their only source of income. Some refugees who lost loved ones during the hostilities told The Beet that they’ve struggled to overcome their sorrow and return to work.

The government has two main justifications for cutting back aid: first, to push refugees to find jobs and support themselves, and second, to encourage participation in a refugee housing program offering three to five million drams ($7,650 to $12,760) per family member to put towards buying or building a home. But there’s a catch — recipients must first obtain Armenian citizenship, which means taking a passport with no mention of Artsakh.

“They tell us to work, but we already do, and it’s still not enough. We’re a family of three, what kind of apartment can we buy with that money? Real estate prices are soaring. We don’t want much, just a replacement for the home we were forced to leave behind,” says Marina. “And we don’t want to give up our passports. Accepting Armenian citizenship would mean accepting that we lost Nagorno-Karabakh, but we want to keep it alive.”

Other refugees told The Beet that losing government assistance will likely lead more of their compatriots to leave Armenia altogether. According to the National Security Service, 9,100 registered refugees left Armenia and did not return between September 2023 and April 2024. And despite fraying ties between Yerevan and Moscow, Russia remains the primary destination for migration. 

The Aharonyan sisters say they do not want to go abroad, yet their plans remain uncertain. “I believe we, the refugees, must unite and protest this decision. We’re not asking for much, just a fraction of what we lost. The government says we only make demands, but what [other choice] did they leave us?” Inessa asks. “Today is our [late] father’s birthday. Where do we go? Where do we lay the flowers?” 

On March 29, thousands of Karabakh refugees gathered in Yerevan’s Freedom Square as part of a series of ongoing protests urging the government to reverse the decision to scale back aid. Speaking at the rally, Nagorno-Karabakh’s former human rights ombudsman, Gegham Stepanyan, emphasized that the financial assistance was a means of survival for thousands of families and warned that the policy change could lead to another wave of migration.

That same day, protesters began a sit-in strike in Freedom Square, which is now in its fifth day. A group of mothers from Nagorno-Karabakh led another protest the following day, hanging laundry outside the government residence as a warning to officials that they and their children could end up on the streets. Another demonstration took place on Monday in front of the Labor and Social Affairs Ministry, where protesters wrote their concerns in chalk at the foot of the building: “Stopping 40+10 = forced emigration.”

Editor’s note: A few days after the Aharonyan family shared their story with The Beet, Raya passed away.

Hello, I’m Eilish Hart, the editor of The Beet. Thanks for taking the time to read our work! Our newsletter delivers underreported stories like this one to subscribers once a month. Like all of Meduza’s reporting, it’s free to read but relies on support from readers like you. Please consider donating to our crowdfunding campaign.