CNN –
Nonna Poghosyan spent Monday morning strolling through her family’s home in Nagorno-Karabakh “to understand what I should take with me, what are the most important things I can fit in my suitcase.”
Her nine-year-old twin children had been upstairs, deciding which of their belongings they had to leave behind. “They cry for every toy,” Poghosyan, program coordinator at the American University of Armenia in the regional capital Stepanakert, told CNN.
Poghosyan and her family are about to join thousands of people fleeing Nagorno-Karabakh into Armenia, days after Azerbaijan launched a lightning offensive and said it had retaken full control of the breakaway region, triggering a mass exodus of the 120,000 ethnic group Armenians of the region triggered.
As of 5 p.m. local time (9 a.m. ET) Monday, more than 6,500 people from Nagorno-Karabakh had arrived in Armenia, the Armenian Foreign Ministry told CNN.
As many more tried to flee the enclave on Monday evening, local media reported a “very violent” explosion at a gas station near Stepanakert where people had been trying to get fuel before heading to Armenia.
“A gasoline warehouse exploded,” Metakse Hakobyan, a member of the Karabakh parliament, told Armenia’s state news agency Armenpress.
“Hundreds of people were gathered there when the explosion took place. I cannot say whether there will be casualties or not and how many, but there will definitely be casualties. We can’t sort it out quickly,” Hakobyan warned.
Nonna Poghosyan
Poghosyan’s daughter, 9 years old, says goodbye to some of her toys.
Azerbaijan’s brief but bloody offensive last week killed more than 200 people and wounded many more before Karabakh officials agreed to a Russian-brokered ceasefire and agreed to disband their forces. Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev said Baku had restored its sovereignty over the enclave “with an iron fist.”
The Karabakh presidency told Portal that the majority of Karabakh Armenians do not want to live in Azerbaijan and will leave for Armenia. Azerbaijan has said it will guarantee the rights of people living in the region, but Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and international experts have repeatedly warned of the risk of ethnic cleansing of Armenians in the enclave.
“Our people do not want to live as part of Azerbaijan. “99.9 percent prefer to leave our historic country,” David Babayan, an adviser to Samvel Shahramanyan, the president of the self-proclaimed Republic of Artsakh, told Portal.
Poghosyan told CNN she doesn’t know a single family that plans to stay in Nagorno-Karabakh. “If they say 99.9, that’s wrong. “It’s 100%,” she said.
“Aliyev can tell you many stories: ‘Look, look, a lot of Armenian families stay here.’ But I know that no one – not even the poorest family – stays.”
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Azerbaijan has long been vocal about the decision facing Armenians in Karabakh. Anyone who wants to stay must accept Azerbaijani citizenship. Anyone who doesn’t do that has to leave.
Anna Ohanyan, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace’s Russia and Eurasia Program, told CNN there was “no question” that Azerbaijan would use force against those who tried to stay and reject Baku’s rule.
“If the Armenian community didn’t leave but also didn’t accept Azerbaijani passports, I think it’s basically suicide,” Ohanyan said.
More than 100 bodies were recovered during recent search and rescue operations following Azerbaijan’s military operations, Karabakh’s rescue services told Armenpress.
The bodies included two children and an elderly couple, officials said. CNN could not independently verify the claims.
Images shared on social media showed residents of Stepanakert, the region’s capital, packing their belongings into cars and vans and searching for gasoline. The region had been blockaded by Azerbaijan-backed activists for nine months, leading to chronic shortages of food, medicine and fuel.
Most of the refugees from Karabakh were women, children and the elderly, the deputy mayor of the Armenian city of Goris, Irina Yolyan, told Armenpress on Monday. Goris is located near the border between Armenia and Azerbaijan, near the Lachin Corridor – the only road connecting the enclave with Armenia.
Poghosyan said the road was partially opened to allow people to escape to Armenia.
Alain Jocard/AFP/Getty Images
Refugees wait after crossing the border and arriving at the Armenian Foreign Ministry registration center near the city of Kornidzor, September 25, 2023.
Poghosyan told CNN she plans to leave on Tuesday along with her husband, her 9-year-old twin children, her parents and her grandmother. The seven of them would have left earlier but were warned that traffic on the road was leaving many stranded for hours and thousands already trying to escape.
As she and her children began sorting through their belongings, her father joined the long line to get fuel. “The government told us we could get five liters for free,” Poghosyan said. “But they say the route is so big, the traffic, that we might need more and that won’t be enough.”
She said her children were “horrified” by the shelling in Stepanakert, which began as they were walking home from school. Her husband managed to find her on the street and take her to a bomb shelter where her family hid overnight on Tuesday.
After the initial shock, the weekend brought clarity, she said, as her children realized they had to say goodbye to their home. “I was surprised at how they could understand… everything,” Poghosyan said.
“Today they took their pens, went into their rooms and painted their walls. They drew churches, crosses and some words like “Artsakh, we love you.” We will never forget you. We don’t want to lose you, our motherland.’”
Nonna Poghosyan
Poghosyan’s twins wrote farewell messages to Nagorno-Karabakh on the walls of their bedroom.
According to Armenpress, the Armenian government stated that it was providing housing for those without shelter.
“I knew that Artsakh was a conflict zone. I knew it because I had already been through four wars. But who would have thought that the ending would be so tragic? This is the end, you know,” Poghosyan said.
“They changed our flag, our government surrendered. That’s all. I think that within two weeks at the most there will be no Armenians left here.”