Deceased soldier of April war fatally wounded shortly before ending service

The Armenian soldier who died yesterday after six month of hospitalization with heavy wounds was to have completed his compulsory service a day before being fatally shot.

Narek Asatryan, who was wounded in the head on June 18, was a resident of Karenis, a village in Armenia’s Kotayk region. He earlier fought in the four-day war over Nagorno-Karabakh.

“Narek was the only child [in the family]. He enjoyed a high respect in the village; he was smart and modest ...,″ the village’s mayor, Karen Baghdasaryan, told Tert.am.

The deceased soldier has left behind an ailing mother and an unemployed father, Asatryan added. “They would get to hospital from the village every day in the hope that their son would recover. Narek was the family’s hope."

After sustaining the heavy wounds in a mine explosion, the soldier was under doctors′ care in Yerevan’s central military hospital.