Such incidents are now a regular occurrence in Armenia, highlighting recent years’ significant increase in armed robberies, shootings and other firearm-related crimes committed there. According to the Armenian police, their total number rose from 94 in 2023 to 109 in 2024. It surged by 40 percent in 2023.
Although the police have yet to release crime data for the first few months of this year, the frequency of shootings reported by law-enforcement authorities and media suggests that the upward trend is continuing.
On Tuesday, an unknown gunman opened fire at an open-air market in Yerevan’s northern Avan suburb, wounding a 76-year-old innocent passerby. The woman was wounded in the head and rushed to hospital.
The police did not track down and arrest the shooter in the following hours. They identified instead another man described by them as a “participant of the incident.” Eyewitnesses of the shooting, who sell goods at the market, declined to comment.
Gunfire also erupted on Sunday night at a restaurant in Arzni, a large village 15 kilometers north of Yerevan, during a party organized by its mayor, Felix Mirzoyev. His guests brawled and fired gunshots for still unknown reasons. One of them was critically wounded as a result.
Law-enforcement authorities made at least ten arrests afterwards. The suspects reportedly included a member of the local council affiliated with the ruling Civil Contract party as well as three close relatives of an aide to Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian.
The investigators also briefly detained Mirzoyev. The Arzni mayor refused to talk to RFE/RL’s Armenian Service on Tuesday.
Two other men were wounded on June 2 in the courtyard of a residential neighborhood in Yerevan’s southern Shengavit districts. Gunshots were also heard in the city center the previous night.
Alik Sargsian, who ran the Armenian police from 2008-2011, expressed concern at the increased number of such incidents.
“As you see, weapons are found in many people’s cars, and … weapons will one day fire somewhere,” he told RFE/RL’s Armenian Service. “Their use has become more frequent and easier.”
Random checks of cars carried out by the police alone cannot address the problem, Sargsian said, adding that the law-enforcement bodies should do much more.
Interior Minister Arpine Sargsian (no relation to Alik) downplayed in January the 16 percent rise in gun violence recorded last year.
“Crimes committed with firearms account for only 0.3 percent of our overall crime statistics,” the 30-year-old minister told a news conference.
Armenia’s overall crime rate has also risen considerably since the 2018 “velvet revolution.” Critics claim that the country is not as safe as it used to be because its current government is more incompetent and softer on crime than the previous ones.
Last month, the pro-government mayor of the Armenian town of Vagharshapat, Diana Gasparian, resigned following a deadly shooting at a gas station belonging to her father-in-law. Investigators are still hunting for another local resident who they believe committed the murder. According to news reports, the fugitive suspect is a friend of Gasparian’s husband.