Ethnic Armenian Rafik Sarkisian rode his beloved horse from Nagorno-Karabakh to safety in Armenia after Azerbaijani forces attacked Nagorno-Karabakh on September 19. He traveled for over 24 hours before a local Armenian family took in the exhausted 60-year-old. Sarkisian told RFE/RL that he left nearly everything behind, including the graves of his two sons who both died in 2020 during fighting over the region.