KORNIDZOR: Ethnic Armenian refugees began to leave Nagorno-Karabakh on Sunday (Sep 24) for the first time since Azerbaijan launched an offensive designed to seize control of the breakaway territory and perhaps end a three-decade-old conflict.
Azerbaijan’s one-day operation that ended Wednesday with a separatist pledge to disarm could mark a historic geopolitical shift, with Baku victorious and Armenia publicly distancing itself from its traditional ally Russia.
“Yesterday, we had to put down our rifles. So we left,” a man in his thirties from the village of Mets Shen told AFP as a first group of a few dozen people crossed the border and registered with Armenian officials in Kornidzor.
“We had 15 minutes to pack everything up, regretting having left his livestock and the grave of his three-year-old daughter behind in Mets Shen. “I didn’t tell her goodbye. I hope to go back.”
According to the Armenian government, by Sunday evening 377 “forcefully displaced persons” had crossed from Azerbaijan to Armenia.
Most of the refugees seen by AFP were women and children, including some from Eghtsahogh, where people took shelter around a Russian peacekeeping base after their village allegedly came under Azerbaijani shelling.
Separatist leaders have said they are negotiating the fate of some 120,000 ethnic Armenians from Nagorno-Karabakh in talks with Azerbaijani officials mediated by Russian peacekeepers.
Azerbaijan said Sunday it had switched the region’s main city, Stepanakert, to its own power grid as part of the “reintegration” effort.
But civilians who have managed to escape report shortages of food, water and fuel caused by Azerbaijan’s nine-month blockade.
Source: CNA
