Presenter Marianna Ghahramanyan dissolved into tears on live television as she read out the breaking news that her nation’s dream had died.
Apologizing, the experienced broadcaster tried again to tell her viewers that Armenian authorities in Nagorno-Karabakh had announced the dissolution of their breakaway republic after more than three decades of fighting for independence against Azerbaijan.
Tears choked her words once more. "It was so painful,” Ghahramanyan, 39, recalled later at a cafe in Armenia’s capital, Yerevan. "It’s a personal tragedy for me and a huge tragedy for my people.”