“We were ambushed, they said he was hit by a bullet, but he is alive…” – MISSING – VUSALA MAMMADOVA WRITES |

Rzayev Ahmed in Pressklub.az’s “Missing” project Sabir we remember his son.

Sumgait. 1992 year.

Ahmed soldier When she entered the door in her clothes, Agkhanim lost herself:

– What kind of clothes is this? Where are you going?

– I’m going to the front! I volunteered to leave home without knowing it!

– Without permission from home… – My maid got angry.

– How should I do it? If they know at home, they will not let it. They will say, don’t go!

– I will tell my father now…

– Sacrifice Come on, don’t tell me to go home before I leave. I’ve made my decision, I’m going. I have a few minutes, I came to say goodbye to you.

Ahmed took out the star from his hat and put it in the palm of 5-year-old Rovsha:

– Keep a souvenir from uncle! If anything… You will remember me with this star…

– Don’t say such words! – My maid is full.

– You can’t cry behind my back! Look, I got you a present too. Keep this pin as a souvenir from me!

– Ahmed, your sister sacrificedon’t go without meeting atamgil…

– We will have a lot of time to meet. You will explain everything to them…

***

Sumgait. The year 2022.

Umhani, an 83-year-old mother, describes Ahmad:

– He was my son… He was very kind to his mother, father, brother and sisters child It was… It was three years military when he returned from the service… He worked in a factory, he had respect for himself… We wanted him to start a family, but he did not agree. “It’s war, it’s not time to get married,” he said… I was a little weak, I wish I could get married… In 1992, he volunteered to go to Kalbajar… Kalbajar after the occupation, he returned and went to Gubadli… He was an artilleryman in Yazı plain and drove a tank… He came home after the occupation of Gubadli… This time he went to Fuzuli… I remember exactly the date he went to Fuzuli – December 29, 1993… He didn’t come again… In Fuzuli… I don’t know how to say…? 28 years have passed, but that word still doesn’t fit on my tongue, my daughter… The needle is lost, the pin is lost… Will the son be lost too, baby?

Her voice trembles, her eyes fill up, she cannot speak… Her daughter Aghkhanim and her son Araz continue the conversation:

Aghkhanim Rzayeva:

– Ahmed was born on September 18, 1967 in Sumgait. We grew up almost like twins because we had an age difference. He was talking to me all the time. His attendance was good, but he had no interest in studying. In the evenings, I did his homework so that he wouldn’t get slapped by the teacher in the morning… (Laughs) Prices He was 3-4… They wrote his name on the board at the school where he now studies… When he went to play football, he took me with him to come and be our goalkeeper… When he left, he met only me…

Araz Rzayev:

– He left without meeting us… I didn’t let him be my back, my support… Our father sick, our mother is old, we need to get married! I came home from work in the evening, they said you have news, Ahmed has gone… I said, after all, he promised me, he said “I won’t go”…

In our family, the place of big and small has always been protected. I was Ahmed’s older brother, there was a curtain between us. We had the same relationship with my father… That’s why he didn’t talk to me for too long… But he still left…

No. 706 military served in the part. When he was in Gubadli, he was wounded in the plain of Yazi. The bullet had gone through the left side of his neck… I went to him when he was in the hospital in Khanaliq. We met… I asked, do you have any concerns? He said, “No. I will fight to the end, I have no intention of returning home. My comrades-in-arms, my friends perished I must buy their blood.”

– My son always thought of his partner, not himself. It happened that when he got paid, he would say “so-and-so’s child is a baby” and give him the money. My Ahmad had such a heart. My unmarried boy used to say, one pair of pants is enough for me… Let that father not be squeezed next to his child…

– The same Ahmed was on the same front. In Fuzuli, their headquarters were in Karimbeyli, and their sleeping quarters were in Shukurbeyli. I went to the battle positions… Yukhari Hasanli, Water reservoir, Uzumlu around Shukurbeyli… he was shot in the battle there… Frankly, it seems to me that he is unlikely to survive…

– Why? – asks his mother.

– I have traveled all over Azerbaijan. GanjaImishli, Baku… I have the whole picture of my brother in my hand Martyrs I visited its alleys, cemeteries, nameless graves, morgues. I went to hospitals. I showed the photo to the wounded soldiers and asked them to look carefully, maybe this is it child Did he die next to you? I asked the civilians in the ward… Maybe you don’t know his name, but his face will be remembered, I said… No one saw him… So I’m sure he stayed in the war zone…

– At that time, his fellow fighters said that he was wounded in the shoulder, but he was alive… – adds the mother…

– I went straight to the trench and asked my friends. They said, Armenians attacked us in the vineyards near Shukurbeyli village. We were below the road and they were way above, they ambushed us. We lost a lot, we were wounded, but we did not take any prisoners. They said that Ahmed was alive, the bullet hit him in the shoulder. Didn’t hit his leg? Nope. So he could walk! No, if he couldn’t get out injured, then that’s it child was shot and stayed there… I asked you to say clearly, “it was shot, we couldn’t take it… Say it!” Tell me the truth!”

You know, I was in the army too. A soldier we had a motto among our comrades – if something happened to me, say “I saw, he was injured, or captive fell…” But don’t say it’s dead, don’t lose hope, keep your eye on the road…

– I wait every day to see if he is alive… – mother whispers.

– I had a friend from Lachin who lived here in Sumgait – Zeynalov Salman Ayyub oglu. He was two years older than Ahmed, married, had a son and a daughter. He also went voluntarily in August 1992. 10 in February 1994 during the battles for the village of Cojug-Marjanli in Jabrayil National Together with the hero Gorkhmaz Eyvazov martyr it happened Korkhmaz’s two cubs also remained as souvenirs. Also Afghan Gorchuyev… He also had two children… Total, five martyr was Two in Baku Martyrs They buried him in Khiyaban, and three in Sumgait – AfghanKorkhmaz and Salman… When I attended their funeral and returned home, my mother said…

– I said, Araz, Alikram wrote a letter home… Go quickly, they say from Ahmed news there is…

– Alikram was a familiar child. He was also fighting. There was no letter from Ahmed. news I was going to buy it. But when Alikram wrote a letter to his family news was doing I went… It was written in the letter that “Araza, Ahmet is injured, but he is said to be in Fuzuli.” Let them go and visit the child.” I immediately set off…

First, I went to Beylagan hospital, where they brought the wounded. The seriously injured were sent to Baku by helicopter. I have gone through all of these… I have searched for my brother among the wounded and the martyr…. Not found anywhere…

– How can it be? How can a tall son be so lost that you cannot find him? – the mother answers her question by shrugging her shoulders.

– There is a place called “prophet” in Beylagan, there is no name martyrs it was too much. The corpses were photographed, numbered and buried. For example, picture number 5 is in grave number 5… There are signs on the back of the picture… For example, it has a mark on its back… Everyone was looking for it, they said it would suddenly come out… Imagine that a big table was full of pictures… How high it was piled…

I looked at those pictures for maybe eight hours, maybe he lost a lot of blood and his face changed? I didn’t see it… The signs don’t match. Thank you to those who buried those sons, they tried to make all the records so that people could at least find the remains of their children. There was one, they found a piece of it, put the head on it and took a picture of it.

Somehow… It turned out that the incident happened on January 13, a month before the news reached us. There is no place I haven’t gone and searched for. I used to find the ambulances and ask, where did you take the injured person who looked like the boy in this picture that day? I forgot how to sleep… The loss is mine, I must look for it…

– We are still looking… I say, maybe… one day has come…

– You see, my mother is still waiting… I searched for months… Captured we also thought about the possibility of falling, but it was not confirmed… Many times at the Red Cross, Captured and I visited the State Commission on missing and hostage-taking citizens. Do you know how many people were in front of the Red Cross? Everyone was looking for their lost, captured… There were those who were found, and those who were returned from captivity…

– The one who returned home empty-handed like us… Every time my son went there, I was waiting for him to come back…

– Ahmed’s name was finally removed from the list of missing persons…

– Now his name is on the board of the missing in Sumgait Martyrs’ Alley. Girl, do you know how many names are on that board? The names of all those missing from Sumgayit were written there… Believe me, it is harder for a mother to see her child’s name on the missing plaque than to see it on the headstone…

– Mother, I am sure that that child was left on the battlefield… I think so… Frankly, if I were in Ahmed’s place, I would tell my warrior friends so that those at home should not lose hope in life…

– After 7 months, my child was martyred…

– I didn’t want to. Why should we bury that child while he is still alive? But to my mother martyred mother they gave the status.

– I haven’t received that money for how many months… I’m waiting… It’s not coming out of my heart…

– My mother waits for news every day…

– The state provided me with an apartment, I said, what’s good, I also have a house, we will get married as soon as I return…

– Every year on his birthday, I go to the Alley of Martyrs and touch his name on the list of the missing… – Aghkhanim interrupts the dialogue between his mother and brother: – My mother doesn’t want to read the “Quran” to Ahmed because he is alive…

– Why are you reading “Quran” to my living child?

– I’m going to buy flowers… I put flowers in front of the sign with the name, and read the “Quran” to the other martyrs…

– That time my friend how many times military went to the part that I gave you my son alive, why is there no news about him?

– My father died of heart failure in 1999. His last will was related to my brother. He instructed me: Araz, look for the child, maybe he is alive… Don’t worry, look for your brother, he might be alive…

– Now from the occupation free When mass cemeteries are discovered in the occupied areas, everyone calls us and informs us. I follow all the news… Fuzuli free I was happy that suddenly a child was found… I say child, but my son is now 55 years old. God knows, by now his hair is also gray…

– We could not get rid of Ahmed’s pain, my 22-year-old cousin was also martyred in Fuzuli during the 44-day war. We buried him in Sumgait Martyrs’ Alley…

– Oh, my daughter… To both of you sacrifice I said… To both news…

Note: The article used the materials of the State Commission on Prisoners and Missing, Hostaged Citizens.

Vusala Mammadova