More than 100,000 inhabitants of Nagorno Karabakh fled to Armenia, about 83% of its total population, after the lightning offensive by Azerbaijan, which today denounced the death of one of its soldiers on the border and promised “retaliation.”
“So far, 100,437 people have arrived,” Armenian government spokesperson Nazeli Baghdasarian said at a press conference today.
The official data was that some 120,000 Armenians lived in Nagorno Karabakh, so the figure means that more than 83% of them abandoned their homes in the face of reports of possible “ethnic cleansing” and despite calls from Azerbaijan for them to remain in their houses.
After a lightning offensive carried out on September 19, the authorities of the republic proclaimed three decades ago, without international recognition and known to Armenians as Artsakh, announced that it will be dissolved as of January 1.
“There are a few hundred officials, emergency workers, volunteers and people with special needs left, who are also preparing to leave,” wrote the former mediator for the rights of Nagorno Karabakh, Artak Beglarian, on the social network X, formerly known as Twitter.
Many of those Armenians even burned their personal effects before joining the refugee column, reported the AFP news agency.
In total, nearly 600 people died in the lightning offensive with which Azerbaijan regained effective control of this territory.
These last battles ended with some 200 soldiers dead on each side, while at least 170 people died after the explosion of a fuel tank that was taken by refugees as they fled along the only road that connects the mountainous enclave with the Republic of Armenia.
Amid this tension, an Azerbaijani soldier was killed by a sniper stationed on the Armenian side of the border, Azerbaijan’s Defense Ministry said today, indicating that its forces were carrying out “retaliation.”
The soldier “was killed” in the Kelbajar region, west of Nagorno-Karabakh, by gunfire from the Armenian village of Kut, the ministry said.
Armenia quickly denied this accusation and indicated that the information of shots coming from its territory against positions of the neighboring country “does not correspond to reality.”
Meanwhile, the UN announced the dispatch this weekend of a mission to Nagorno Karabakh, the first in 30 years, to assess humanitarian needs.
Likewise, the United Nations World Food Program announced today that it will accelerate its efforts to feed the more than 100,000 displaced people.
In this sense, the agency reported that it plans to increase its rate of delivery of rations to 21,000 meals in the next two weeks, which are in addition to the delivery of ingredients such as cereals or cooking oil for 30,000 people, indicated the Europa Press news agency. .
Nagorno-Karabakh is within the international borders of Azerbaijan, but the inhabitants seceded in the years of disintegration of the Soviet Union, and since then they were at odds with the Azerbaijani power, with which they fought two wars with the support of neighboring Armenia.
After the first of them, which was fought from 1988 to 1994 and left some 30,000 dead, the Armenians took de facto control of the region and established their republic there, without international recognition.
In the second war, in 2020, which left some 6,500 dead, Azerbaijan recovered areas of Nagorno-Karabakh and surrounding territories that the Armenians had conquered in the previous conflict.
The latest military incursion revived accusations of “ethnic cleansing” by Armenia, including allegations by Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian. Armenians are Christians, while Azerbaijan is a Muslim country.
In this sense, the Armenian authorities presented a complaint to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in which they demanded urgent measures to protect the inhabitants of the enclave.
And in an Armenia overwhelmed by the arrival of refugees, anger is also increasing against the Government: some 3,000 detractors of the prime minister, accused of passivity in the face of the lightning victory of the Azerbaijani troops, held a new demonstration today in the central square of Yerevan, the capital.
The protest also demanded the release of businessman and former Nagorno Karabakh leader Ruben Vardanian, who is detained, accused by the Azerbaijanis of committing “terrorist crimes.”
Levon Mnatsakanian, who was Minister of Defense of the self-proclaimed republic between 2015 and 2018, was also arrested, and in the last hours the person in charge of Foreign Affairs of the territory, David Babaian, was also arrested.
Armenia, meanwhile, blames the situation on Russia, a traditionally allied country that since 2020 had peacekeeping soldiers in the area and that on this occasion did not intervene to guarantee compliance with the ceasefire.
The Kremlin reported that it is now talking with Azerbaijan about the future of its peace mission, which is becoming obsolete due to the mass flight of the region’s inhabitants.
Source: Ambito
