Local residents block the highway in the Armenian town of Echmiadzin

photo: 1in.am

The residents of Echmiadzin, located 20km from Armenia’s capital Yerevan, have blocked one of the central highways today, demanding that the water supply problem be solved.

According to Echmiadzin residents, they haven’t been supplied with drinking water for over a month already. They appealed to the relevant agencies, requesting to solve this situation. However, all the promises to address the problem have turned out to be futile. In despair, the city residents have finally decided to block the central highway, so as to at least somehow draw attention to their problem.

“We haven’t had a single drop of normal water for over two months. Whoever we turn to, we are told that everything will be settled, but nothing has been settled so far,” one of the residents complained, noting that they will block the road again if the problem isn’t solved.

According to an elderly resident, it’s just impossible to survive without water in such hot weather: “You can neither wash nor go to the toilet. How could it be so? It’s a shame. There are 70 residents in our building and none of us have any water.”

The residents say the authorized agencies’ responses were rather contradictory: at first they said the water outages were due to a water supply system breakdown and that there were pipeline problems. Then they promised to tackle the problem in 1-2 days, but haven’t solved it.

“It’s not the time when people die of thirst and can’t wash their laundry. We have to collect the dishes, then we, the women, go together with buckets to fetch some water and wash those dishes. A child, who comes home after playing in the street, can’t wash his hands. Have you ever seen anything like this?” complains one of the women.

The municipal authorities haven’t so far answered the question as to why the residents have no water and when the situation is going to change.