The Armenian branch of the Red Cross on Monday accused Azerbaijan of blocking access to the Nagorno-Karabakh enclave amid mounting concerns over the humanitarian situation in that region disputed by Baku and Yerevan.
In April, Azerbaijan set up a first checkpoint at the entrance to the Lachin Corridor, the only road connecting the breakaway region with Armenia.
Earlier, the months-long blockade of this corridor by Azerbaijanis posing as environmental activists had led to a humanitarian crisis with food shortages and power outages, Yerevan said.
Baku, which has defended the checkpoint’s establishment on security grounds, says civilian transports can circulate freely through the Lachin Corridor.
But “since Thursday (last) there was no easy passage for the Red Cross through the Lachin Corridor,” Zara Amatouni, spokeswoman for the International Committee of the Cross, told AFP on Monday. Red Cross (ICRC) in Armenia.
“Humanitarian supplies of medicines and other medical materials to hospitals in Karabakh, as well as transport of seriously ill patients have been suspended,” she said.
Already last week, Armenia accused Azerbaijan of blocking the movement of vehicles through this corridor since June 15.
Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian said that “the humanitarian situation in Karabakh has deteriorated extremely” and accused Baku of “ethnic cleansing”.
On May 24, Armenia asked the International Court of Justice (ICJ), the United Nations’ main judicial body, to force Baku to lift the blockade.
The two Caucasian countries engaged in two wars in the early 1990s and in 2020 over control of Nagorno-Karabakh, a predominantly Armenian-populated mountainous region that seceded from Azerbaijan more than three decades ago.
This first conflict, which claimed 30,000 lives, ended in an Armenian victory.
But Azerbaijan retaliated in a second war in the fall of 2020 that claimed 6,500 lives and allowed it to retake many territories.
Despite recent progress in peace talks between Baku and Yerevan, border clashes remain frequent.