Karabakh Fighters Still Suffer Trauma

Veterans of Azerbaijan’s defeat in Nagorny Karabakh are respected in their homeland, though activists say they need counselling to help them overcome the lasting trauma of the conflict.

The dispute between Armenians and Azeris over the future of Karabakh began at the end of the Soviet period, erupting into full-scale war. Armenians wanted the region to be separated from Baku’s rule and, in a conflict that ended with a 1994 ceasefire, were left in full control of it and neighbouring districts.

Hundreds of thousands of Azeri refugees fled their homes in Karabakh, and thousands of young men were left mentally and physically scarred.

“The first time I was wounded was in the right leg. After treatment I returned to the front, but the leg still aches to this day. When it is cold, or I am doing physical work, my leg gets covered in bruises, and these long terrible pains start,” said Vaqif Abbasov, who left his university to fight for five years. He is 35, but looks nearer 50.

“I was also wounded in the head. I was treated and returned to the front. Because of this injury my nerves are not in order. I get into hysterics for the most insignificant reasons. Because of me, my family lives sometimes in something like a prison. Every night I have nightmares. I see that I am surrounded and cannot escape. I wake up in a cold sweat.”

Psychologists say such dreams are worryingly common among veterans, even more than a decade and a half after the war.

“It is interesting that in times of war, the fighters have completely different dreams. In such times, the body’s self-defence mechanism is strong. They normally have dreams when they defeat their enemy. But when they come back from the war, the opposite happens,” said Dayanat Rzaev, the chief psychologist at the Regional Centre of Psychology.

He said many veterans suffer from phobias.

“Some are scared of sleeping because of the nightmares, some of open spaces, some of closed spaces. Among my patients, there are even some who have been afraid to shave,” he said.

But, she said, treatment for such phobias, as well as for physical injuries, is not very well developed in Azerbaijan, and many veterans are unable to access the treatment they need. Abbasov, for example, still has a splinter of shrapnel under his left eye, and cannot afford the operation any more than he can afford to visit a psychologist.

State-run media companies regularly report on the new flats being built in Baku and elsewhere for invalids and veterans of the Karabakh war. President Ilham Aliev almost always attends the ceremonial opening of such buildings.

In February this year, for example, AzerTac news agency reported that a new apartment block had been built in the village of Lokbatan for invalids, who had also been given cars. Fizuli Alakbarov, minister for labour and social security, told the president at the opening ceremony that the building housed 81 flats specifically designed for disabled people.

Although veterans welcome such flats, they say that they do not address the main problem. Uzeyir Cafarov, chairman of the social union of war correspondents and a reserve colonel, said they need more help to adapt to civilian life.

“It is true flats are given out, as well as cars and social support, but this has no long-term effect,” he said.

“These people are very sensitive, very wounded. Therefore it is necessary to examine all their demands, without ignoring them. Sadly, some officials block this with bureaucracy.”

Aliyar Musaev, 50, also fought in Karabakh, on Murov Mountain. He works to support his family, but has struggled to adapt to life since the war, and is constantly confronted by vivid flashbacks.

“It’s like there’s a film rolling before my eyes. There are many bodies. There are tanks crushing them under their caterpillar tracks, a lot of blood. It’s like everything is happening again and again,” he said.

“We spent 25 days surrounded on the mountain top. My family was even told of my death. At that time my foot froze, and I cannot feel warmth to this day. We lived through hell. I do piecework now. When there’s work, there’s money. And when there’s no work, we are left without anything.”

Rzaev said Musaev’s precarious condition will just be worsening his psychological state, and that the best way of treating such traumatised invalids is to allow them to rebuild their self-respect through work.

“You need to organise courses for them, to give professions to those of them who don’t have them. This is so that these people who lost their health in defending their homeland do not feel they are not needed, and are separated from society,” he said.

Seymur Kazimov is a freelance journalist.