Almost 90 thousand people have already left the Armenian enclave recently conquered by Azerbaijan. Around 120,000 are said to have lived there recently. Austrian Foreign Minister Schallenberg sees the danger of a “forest fire in the South Caucasus”.
Following Azerbaijan’s rapid conquest of the Armenian-dominated Nagorno-Karabakh conflict region in the South Caucasus, more than 88,000 people have sought refuge in Armenia so far, according to the UN and the Armenian government. Government spokeswoman Naseli Bagdassarjan said in Yerevan on Friday that they were people who were forced to leave their homeland. According to official and unverifiable information, 120 thousand Karabakh Armenians previously lived in the region; older sources speak of up to 150 thousand.
APA/Martin Hirsch
In a military offensive last week, authoritarian-governed Islamic Azerbaijan completely reconquered the region, which had been disputed for decades. The leadership of the internationally unrecognized Christian Armenian Republic of Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh) capitulated and sealed its self-dissolution on January 1, 2024. The government of Azerbaijan and Russia, which is considered the protecting power of Armenia, they declared that there was no reason to flee. However, Karabakh Armenians fear persecution and violence from Azerbaijan.
Accusation of ethnic cleansing
In Yerevan, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan accused the neighboring country of “ethnic cleansing” at a government meeting on Thursday night. “Analysis of the situation shows that in the next few days there will be no more Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh.” In the past, there were almost constant conflicts between the Christian Armenians of Karabakh and the Muslim Azerbaijanis.
Coffins next to a morgue in Stepanakert, capital of Nagorno-Karabakh. Portal/David Ghahramanyan
According to the Armenian government, a humanitarian center has been created for refugees near Nagorno-Karabakh. Nagorno-Karabakh human rights commissioner Gegam Stepanyan said at least 200 people were killed and around 400 injured in Azerbaijan’s offensive. The Azerbaijani side also reported losses within its own ranks, with at least 190 dead and 510 injured.
A little bigger than Burgenland
The mountainous region, measuring around 4,400 km², slightly larger than Burgenland, has been disputed for decades between the former Soviet republics of Azerbaijan and Armenia. In the 1990s, Nagorno-Karabakh, which is in Azerbaijani territory but is mostly ethnic Armenian, managed to break away from Baku in a civil war with the help of Yerevan.
Azerbaijan, which is now militarily superior thanks to oil and gas revenues, initially managed to recapture large parts of Nagorno-Karabakh in 2020. It also apparently received help from its ally Türkiye. A ceasefire brokered by Russia at the time proved fragile.
Austria helps Armenia
Austrian Foreign Minister Alexander Schallenberg criticized Azerbaijan’s offensive and demanded security commitments for Baku Armenians. In view of other conflicts in the region, the minister sees “the potential for a massive conflagration in the South Caucasus”. At the same time, in Friday’s Tyrolean daily newspaper, he announced two million euros in aid to Karabakh refugees from additional funds from the Austrian Development Agency (ADA). They are intended to benefit displaced people through the International Committee of the Red Cross. Armenia is an ADA priority country. (APA/red.)