Four year-old Sarkis often wakes with the same unanswerable question: “Hasn’t Dad come back? I want Gor…”

Gor Kloyan didn’t come back home to his two sons March 1 after he went to the center of Yerevan out of curiosity over what he’d been hearing. Gor, 28, was one of 10 who died from Armenia’s dark First Day of Spring.

“I don’t know what to say to this child, how to explain to him that his father is not coming back anymore, that some people retained their power at the cost of his father’s blood and other 9 innocent victims’ blood,” says Sarkis’ grandmother Azatuhi Manukyan.

“The time will come and he will understand, but what was these children’s sin that they will now have to grow up without a father?”
Gor’s father found his son in hospital on Proshyan Street, where almost all those wounded were taken that day. Recalling that day, the victim’s mother says that she had seen such terrifying scenes only in war films.

“The whole hospital was filled with wounded and beaten young people awash in blood, and then one person was given a piece of paper and told that their son was dead, I began screaming, shouting: “How could they kill him? He was so young.” Little did I know then that my own son was already dead in the next room,” Azatuhi says.

The parents were shown a 4cm by 2cm bullet casing by doctors explaining the cause of death. Doctors also said a gas cartridge lodged inside Gor’s groin exploded during surgery, filling the operating room with teargas and necessitating evacuation. Otherwise, he might have been saved, they said.

According to the father, the probability of saving his son was high, as, even though the main blood vessel was injured, he had been conscious for about 20 minutes and he was able to say his name and last name when he was taken to hospital.

Gor Kloyan was one of three civilians found to have been shot by police using a “Cheryomukha 7” riot weapon. Four police officers were issued those guns, but none has been identified as the shooter. (See "They Mock our Dead").

“What do they mean they cannot verify whose fault it is? They have the names, the military unit number. And who gave the order to use that outdated weapon, who gave the order to shoot – not into the air, but straight at the people?” asks the father, who, like his grandson, gets no answer . . .

For the parents, the greatest insult is that they received no condolences from authorities. Only the Heritage Party offered sympathy, whereas Gor had been a member of Prosperous Armenia (pro-government) party and had worked as a proxy for Serzh Sargsyan during the election.

“After the election he was very disappointed, he would say – You can’t imagine what happened, what anarchy there was, how they stuffed the ballot boxes,” the mother says and adds:

“Don’t they realize he was the only breadwinner in the family, don’t they wonder what the family is doing without their parent, how these two children live, what they eat, perhaps they need help? Is there not even a single person with conscience in the government to put sense into the others’ heads?” the mother asks, her eyes reddened.

Then she answers her own question, “There is none. Because if there were, they wouldn’t have killed the children.”