Darshita Jain, Pune
The first refugees from Nagorno-Karabakh arrived in Armenia on Sunday, according to local officials, after Azerbaijan imposed a 10-month blockade on the breakaway region and introduced a lightning military offensive, reclaiming full control of the region.
Thousands of people were evacuated from cities and villages in Nagorno-Karabakh to a Russian peacekeeping camp. As of Sunday night, 377 people had arrived in Armenia from the region, according to Armenian authorities.
Russia’s Defence Ministry reported that peacekeepers deployed in Nagorno-Karabakh in 2020 assisted in the transportation of 311 civilians, including 102 children. The contrary figures could not be reconciled right away.
A woman in Kornidzor, Armenia, described the horror of being shelled in a village and the lack of survivors. She chose to live in her grandmother’s house in Tegh village, in the Syunik region, until the situation was clearer. She refused to disclose her name for security reasons.
Russia mediated a cease-fire that put an end to the fighting, and 2,000 of their soldiers were sent to the region to keep order. Azerbaijan could not recover all of Nagorno-Karabakh, leaving certain areas in the hands of the breakaway government.
Azerbaijan established a blockade on Nagorno-Karabakh’s only road to Armenia in December because the Armenian government was using it to transport illegal weapons to the separatist forces in the region and extract minerals.
Nagorno-Karabakh, which is in Azerbaijan, was taken over by ethnic Armenian fighters with support from the Armenian military in the separatist conflict that was settled in 1994. Azerbaijan reclaimed portions of Nagorno-Karabak and neighbouring areas that Armenian forces had seized during the prior conflict during a six-week campaign in 2020.
Armenia claimed that the blockade prevented the roughly 120,000 residents of Nagorno-Karabakh from receiving essential supplies of food and fuel. Authorities in Nagorno-Karabakh have long resisted this idea, claiming it is an attempt by Azerbaijan to seize control of the area. However, Azerbaijan has long maintained that supplies could be delivered to the area through the Azerbaijani city of Aghdam.
In Nagorno-Karabakh, ethnic Armenian forces were subjected to heavy artillery fire from Azerbaijan on Tuesday, but they complied with orders to surrender the following day. The final status of Nagorno-Karabakh is still an open issue, though, and is at the centre of negotiations between the parties that started on Thursday in the Azerbaijani city of Yevlakh.
Armenia has seen a wave of protests over the past few days as a result of the events in Nagorno-Karabakh. Protesters there have accused Pashinyan and the Russian peacekeepers of failing to protect the Armenian population in the area.
Several hundred protesters gathered once more on Sunday in Yerevan, the capital of Armenia, to demand Pashinyan’s ouster.
Following last week’s cease-fire agreement, the separatist forces in Nagorno-Karabakh began handing over tanks, air defence systems, and other weapons to the Azerbaijani army. According to the Azerbaijani military, the process of handing over weapons was still in progress as of Sunday.
Disarmed and demobilised Armenian troops will be permitted to leave the area and travel to Armenia, according to the Interior Ministry of Azerbaijan.