More than 65,036 Armenians from Nagorno-Karabakh have arrived in Armenia, according to the government.
More than half of Nagorno-Karabakh’s Armenians fled following Azerbaijan’s military offensive against the separatist region. More than 65,036 Armenians from Nagorno-Karabakh have come to Armenia, a spokeswoman for Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said on Thursday. To date, nearly 120,000 ethnic Armenians have lived in Nagorno-Karabakh, which is internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan, representing virtually the entire population.
The region has been disputed between the two former Soviet republics of Azerbaijan and Armenia for decades. After a war in the early 1990s, the Armenians were in control. A separate state proclaimed on the soil of Nagorno-Karabakh has not been recognized internationally. After another war in 2020, Azerbaijan recaptured parts of Nagorno-Karabakh and occupied Azerbaijani territories. Yerevan accuses Baku of planning “ethnic cleansing” after Azerbaijan launched a large-scale military offensive last week.
Following Azerbaijan’s military offensive on September 19, pro-Armenian fighters in Nagorno-Karabakh had to accept a ceasefire agreement just a day later. Russia, as Armenia’s traditional protective power, let the Azerbaijanis have their way with their military offensive. Armenian Prime Minister Pashinyan therefore made bitter accusations against Moscow. Russia, in turn, accused Yerevan of making a “big mistake” with its recent turn to the West.