The small state in the Caucasus with a population of around three million emerged defeated from the 2020 war with Azerbaijan over the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region. Still, many of the ethnic Armenians that lived in the region stayed. In the years that followed, Armenia saw a series of bloody border clashes with Azerbaijan. Then, in September 2023, Azerbaijan seized full control of Nagorno-Karabakh, leading a mass exodus of more than 100,000 Armenians, who at that point had survived a nine-month blockade and war.
I remember touching my face in the mirror, seeing the weight I'd lost, just 64 kilos, and that was after a very well-publicised McDonald's and a taste of Saudi's finest cuisine, but my eyes didn't blink the same way and it showed. My mother caught me out in the garden one autumn afternoon, a mix of drizzle and sunlight, the ground wet, my bare feet sinking into the grass.
Researchers have defined mass trauma as wars, natural disasters, mass shootings, and pandemics (Theodoratou, Kougioumtzis, Yotsidi, Sofologi, and Megari, 2023). The label of mass trauma also indicates that the trauma is persistent and widespread; the nature of mass trauma also results in human needs being greater than the available resources, thereby hindering the potential for those affected to be able to heal.