In Nagorno-Karabakh, mine explosion kills six people; Azerbaijan accuses Armenian separatists of acts of “terrorism”

Four Azerbaijani police officers and two civilians died on Tuesday September 19 in a mine explosion in Nagorno-Karabakh, Azerbaijani authorities announced, accusing Armenian separatists in this disputed region of having committed these acts of “terrorism”.

These six people were killed when their vehicles exploded on mines on a road between Shusha and Fizuli, two towns in Nagorno-Karabakh under Azerbaijani control, Azerbaijani security services said. The latter accuse a group of Armenian separatist “saboteurs” of having laid these mines and committing an act of “terrorism”.

According to them, the police officers were killed around 4:30 a.m. (2:30 a.m. in Paris) in a tunnel in the Khojavend district while they were going to the scene of the explosion of an anti-tank mine which had hit the vehicle of the two civilians in the same area. The two civilians killed were employees of the Azerbaijani roads agency, security services said.

These new deadly incidents come as a step towards easing tensions in Nagorno-Karabakh was recently accomplished with the arrival of humanitarian aid in this secessionist region.

“Deterioration of the humanitarian situation”

At the beginning of August, Armenia called for an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council in the face of the “deterioration of the humanitarian situation” in the region. The Lachin corridor, the only land link between Armenia and Karabakh, was first blocked by Azerbaijanis posing as environmental demonstrators, before Baku set up a road blockade at the entrance to this road on July 11. citing security reasons.

At the United Nations Security Council meeting on August 16, France, the United Kingdom and the United States urged Baku to ensure free movement on the Lachin road, but no declaration or resolution was voted on at the end of the meeting – a semi-failure for the Armenians.

Nagorno-Karabakh, a mountainous region with an Armenian majority located in Azerbaijan, was the scene of two wars in the early 1990s and then in the fall of 2020. It is one of the most mined areas in the former USSR. Explosions regularly cause casualties there.