Washington Examiner, an American news website and weekly magazine, published a report by journalist Neil Hauer from Armenia. The report is about a training camp for children located in the border village of Armash (Ararat region). Aram, a veteran of the US Air Force of Armenian origin, has formed the Phoenix training school, which trains children for war with Azerbaijanis, sabotage and terrorist actions. In addition to Aram, other foreign instructors are also mentioned in the article: Lebanese, French, Russian, Syrian. According to Hauer, most of the instructors, including Aram, fought in Karabakh on the side of the separatists.

As mentioned in the reportage, the Phoenix school was founded in Armenia in January 2021. Aram explains that they train "about 40 at a time" at their Yerevan facilities. The trainees range from their mid-40s down to their early teens, and a few even younger.

Faktyoxla Lab. tried to figure out to what extent the use of children by the Armenian side complies with international law.

Also, it is not the only such case.

A video posted on the Armenian telegram channels shows teenagers dressed in Armenian military uniforms and "armed" with machine guns in the part of Nagorno-Karabakh under the control of Russian peacekeepers, shooting from an "artillery installation" at an imaginary target. It's not hard to guess who the target is.

During the 44-day war, at the end of October 2020, a video appeared on social networks which showed a teenager participating in hostilities. There, a boy was running around artillery equipment and helping the military.

The following video was also shared on Telegram channels during the war. This footage is proof of how children are trained to take part in the fighting. At a lesson in Khankendi, camouflaged as a "school military training lesson," it is clearly seen that the class is controlled by the military in camouflage uniforms. The video was filmed in mid-October, that is, during the period when the Armenian Armed Forces suffered heavy losses, which they tried to make up for at the expense of these activities.

It indicates that after two weeks of hostilities in Karabakh, having lost a significant part of their manpower, the Armenian authorities began to involve children in military operations.

After the video with the preparation of Armenian children for the war, the Azerbaijani media appealed to the UNICEF Europe and Central Asia Regional Office with a request to comment on the footage. According to a representative of the UNICEF public relations department, the organization did not have the opportunity to check the content of this video. Still, he stressed that any use of children in conflict is a gross violation of their rights.

And now, let us elaborate on international norms Armenia violates.

Article 38 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, adopted by the UN General Assembly on November 20, 1989, states:

States Parties undertake to respect and to ensure respect for rules of international humanitarian law applicable to them in armed conflicts which are relevant to the child.

States Parties shall take all feasible measures to ensure that persons who have not attained the age of fifteen years do not take a direct part in hostilities.

States Parties shall refrain from recruiting any person who has not attained the age of fifteen years into their armed forces. In recruiting among those persons who have attained the age of fifteen years but who have not attained the age of eighteen years, States Parties shall endeavor to give priority to those who are oldest.

The second document prohibiting children's participation in hostilities is the Declaration on the Protection of Women and Children in Emergency and Armed Conflict, adopted by General Assembly resolution 3318 (XXIX) of December 14, 1974. According to the Declaration, all states must fully comply with their obligations under the Geneva Protocol of 1925 and the Geneva Conventions of 1949, as well as other instruments of international law relating to respect for human rights in times of armed conflict, which embody essential guarantees for the protection of women and children.

Under Article 14 of the Geneva Convention relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War, adopted on August 12, 1949, in time of peace, the High Contracting Parties and, after the outbreak of hostilities, the Parties thereto, may establish in their own territory and, if the need arises, in occupied areas, hospital and safety zones and localities so organized as to protect from the effects of war, wounded, sick and aged persons, children under fifteen, expectant mothers and mothers of children under seven.

As you can see, the involvement of children in hostilities and their use for various purposes during the war is entirely contrary to international law and is a gross violation of children's rights.

Patriotic education in Armenia goes hand in hand with the teaching of hatred towards neighbors. Numerous videos posted on social networks by Armenian users as examples of fostering patriotism in children dispel the myth that Azerbaijanis raise their children in hatred of Armenians.

There was a video posted on social networks in which a kindergarten teacher explained to the children that their enemies were the Armenians.

There was a stir around this one-of-a-kind content of the video. Now let's watch these videos, which demonstrate exactly what Armenian parents teach their children under the pretext of "patriotic education."

Raising Armenian children to hate Azerbaijanis and Turks is nothing new. According to the memoirs of a military man who served in Armenia until the late 1980s: "In Armenian schools, children are taught to kill Azerbaijanis and Turks. From the first grade, they drum into the heads of children that almost the entire planet belongs to the Armenians and that the Armenians created the world civilization".

The transformation of Armenian schools into paramilitary organizations began after the signing in September 2014 of a Memorandum of Understanding between the Armenian Ministries of Defense, Education and Science and the Yerkrapah Volunteer Union. The memorandum was intended to strengthen military-patriotic education in schools.

In schools, the lessons of patriotic education were taught to children in numerous forms, starting with the memories of the heroes of the "Artsakh war," eyewitnesses of military operations, and ending with military training and games. Telling reporters about this, the press secretary of the Armenian Defense Ministry Artsrun Hovhannisyan added: " It is quite good if children learn about the Shusha operation during the lesson."

It is characteristic that in Armenia, cruelty is taught not only towards people but also towards animals. In Armenia, cruelty against animals has long become the norm. Kicking a cat, throwing stones at a dog - this is done not only by marginal individuals but also by children with the full connivance of their parents and sometimes with their approval. The penchant for animal abuse has become almost a national feature of the Armenians, Lenta.ru writes.

Another such case recently occurred in one of the peripheral districts of Yerevan. A local resident with his wife looked after the homeless puppies in their yard and fed them. In early June, he posted a video with the puppies on Facebook, captioning it like this: "Guys, help us to shelter or find an owner, the neighbors want to kill them, the puppies are crying and whining. Help, come, save". Exactly one day later, he also published photographs of the animals stoned. There is a version that the children did it: the corpses were not even removed, the blows were weak. It is clear that there can be no question of any "self-defense" in the case of puppies.

After reviewing all of the abovementioned facts, we can come to the following conclusions. First, children's military schools and the use of children in combat operations is a gross violation of international norms, in connection with which Armenia is subject to punishment. The second - instilling hatred against Azerbaijanis in Armenian children, presented under the pretext of "patriotic education," is widespread in Armenia and is part of the national policy.