Armenia’s Ministry of Health has issued a statement urging the armed opposition group which keeps the patrol police regiment under control to release the detained ambulance crew from the building.
The paramedics were held in the seized headquarters on Wednesday after heading there to provide medical aid to people. One nurse was released hours later. Two doctors, Salvador Khechoyan and Norayr Tevanyan, and another nurse, Malina Margaryan, are still being held hostage.
Condemning the armed group’s move, the Ministry urges its members to demonstrate common sense and free first of all the nurse, who is the only woman in the crew.
“Such an act, alien to all kinds written and unwritten laws all over the world, never brings honor to you or your ideas,” reads the statement.
The group, calling itself Sasna Tsrer (Daredevils of Sassoun), stormed into the police building last Sunday, keeping several police officers hostage under the threat of violence.
The regiment’s deputy commander, Colonel Artur Vanoyan, was reported dead hours later.
The group demands the resignation of the ruling authorities in Armenia and the release of all the political prisoners, including Zhirayr Sefilyan, a veteran of the Nagorno-Karabakh war and an opposition activist who was detained last month over the illegal purchase, transportation and storage of weapons.