The double refugees: The family who fled Syria’s civil war and ended up in war-torn Nagorno-Karabakh

Raffi and his relatives face trying to repair lives a second time because of war, reports Jack Losh in Dilijan, Armenia

An Armenian soldier fires artillery on the front line last October (AFP via Getty Images)

As soldiers advanced on the village, Raffi and his family fled without a single bag of clothes – setting off, once more, into exile.

The trio had left the hardships of Syria the previous year to start a new life in Nagorno-Karabakh, the breakaway enclave within Azerbaijan populated and controlled by ethnic Armenians. For Raffi’s family – descendants of Armenians who sought refuge in Syria from genocide a century ago – this distant land held the promise of a fresh start on native soil.

But the recent war over Nagorno-Karabakh has uprooted them a second time, along with tens of thousands of others. While many have since returned, a ceasefire deal that handed control of several areas to Azerbaijan has left thousands more refugees – or in Raffi’s case, double refugees – stuck in limbo far from home, facing an uncertain future.