2024-07-14 04:46:32
Elinar Vardanyan, a member of the “Alternative Projects Group”, wrote:
“2023 36,512 citizens left with an Armenian passport and did not return. This is not just a number: we read it, let’s pass, this is us leaving the state.
The number of people leaving with an Armenian passport and not returning for 10 years is 291,327 people. During this period, only in 2020 the number of arrivals exceeded departures by 42,786, which was due to the global restrictions of the covid epidemic. It is noteworthy that almost half of the 291,327, 138,024, left Armenia and did not return in the last three years: 73,521 citizens in 2021, 27,941 citizens in 2022, and 36,512 citizens in 2023.
Only in the last three years, 138,024 RA citizens did not return to their homeland.
Hundreds of thousands of our citizens dream of a “Green Card”. The statistics of applicants for the “Green Card” for 2019-2021 are summarized in the officially published statistics of the USA. There were 602,359 applications to the embassy for permanent residence in the USA. 2021 160,965 people applied for US residency. In this atmosphere, one can only assume what the number of applicants for the last two years will be.
The percentage of Green Card applicants from Armenia is several times higher than the number of applicants from Georgia and Azerbaijan.
This is not even an emigration, this is a citizen’s decision to reject the state, which has a mass character.
People leave because:
– They have no certainty about our state and their future. A person cannot plan his next week, month, let alone year. Uncertainty about tomorrow is in everyone’s homes.
– They live in the conditions of non-stop war. The authorities convince that they are going for peace, but under the guise of begging for peace is a chaotic state of endless war.
– They are dissatisfied with social injustice. The salary of a teacher, even under the conditions of voluntary certification, cannot be lower than the base salary of a patrolman. The basic salary of a serviceman serving on the border cannot be incomparably lower than the basic salary of police officers. There cannot be a difference of several times between the salaries of high-ranking officials and civil servants who perform enormous work in the lower levels of the state.
– People are desperate and deceived.
The widespread desire of the young generation to leave is frightening. I do not blame or excuse anyone. I have no right to that. I am simply stating the danger. Keeping your children in Armenia is an extremely difficult decision in the conditions of the risky and unpromising policies of today’s government.
The choice is either-or. Either to change the reality inside and around the country, or to adapt to the depopulation of Armenia, which is facing serious security problems. Finding solutions is now the responsibility of all of us. Who needs Armenia if it will exist without Armenians?