The military band struck up the funeral march and a convoy set off through Yerablur Military Pantheon, high above Armenia's capital city, Yerevan. Thousands of soldiers who died in the three wars in Nagorno-Karabakh (1988-94, 2016 and 2020) are buried here. On Friday, September 29, the military cemetery swelled yet again with the funerals of three fighters killed during Azerbaijan's blitzkrieg offensive 10 days earlier. But this time, the mourning was coupled with shock over the fall of the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic, whose self-proclaimed officials announced its dissolution to take place on January 1, 2024.

Stunned Armenians were struggling to come to terms with how the region that they consider to be their ancestral homeland could have slipped away from them in the space of a few days, causing the exodus of over 99,000 of the 120,000 inhabitants of the separatist enclave. "I'm so astounded that I can't even begin to grasp what has happened," said Khatchik Vardanian, a veteran of the 2020 war who had come to pay his respects at the grave of one of his friends. "This is another tragic page in our history."

Armenians have been wondering where to lay the blame. The opposition has accused Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan of incompetence and of sacrificing Nagorno-Karabakh in an effort to save Armenia. It organized demonstrations several nights in a row calling for his resignation. These rallies, led by former prime minister Vazgen Manoukian, were suspended on September 26 in light of the mounting humanitarian crisis. "When we saw all these people pouring in, we told ourselves that we had to help them first," said Manoukian.

Above all, the demonstrations risked portraying a divided society at a critical juncture for an Armenia overwhelmed by the influx of refugees and at risk of further attacks by Azerbaijan. Many in the country have urged a united front against Baku, as well as the need to avoid provoking a political crisis through more chaos. Nonetheless, Manoukian told Le Monde that a new rally was planned for Saturday in Yerevan. "We don't want to make the situation worse," he said, "so we'll see how the participants react."

Levon Zourabian, head of the opposition Armenian National Congress party, has also held Pashinyan "responsible for this disaster." In October 2022 and April 2023, "[Pashinyan] recognized Nagorno-Karabakh as Azerbaijani. This was a major turning point, which encouraged Baku to close the Lachin corridor," the only road linking Armenia to Nagorno-Karabakh. The move subjected the enclave to a near-total blockade for nine months in December 2022. For all that, Zourabian declined to join the protests. "Pashinyan must leave power without destabilizing the country, otherwise it will be 10 times worse. If the state becomes paralyzed, Azerbaijan will take the opportunity to attack us, and no one will be able to respond."

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