Karabakh: more than 13,000 refugees, 20 dead in an explosion

September 26, 2023

At least 13,000 people from Nagorno Karabakh have fled to Armenia, Yerevan said on Tuesday, almost a week after the lightning and victorious offensive led by Azerbaijan in this secessionist region of the Caucasus mainly populated by Armenians.

Monday evening, in the midst of an exodus, a fuel depot exploded in the enclave, causing at least 20 deaths and 280 injuries, the separatist authorities announced on Tuesday, who requested urgent external assistance to deal with this disaster.

“Dozens of patients are still in critical condition,” they said in a statement, specifying that the injured suffering from burns of varying severity had been hospitalized in Nagorno Karabakh.

Twenty people died, thirteen of whom were unidentified. The bodies of the unidentified victims will be subjected to forensic analyses, according to the same source.

Arriving in cars or buses, thousands of residents of Nagorno Karabakh have already found refuge in Armenia. On Tuesday, the Armenian government announced that it had welcomed more than 13,000, while hundreds of vehicles were still heading towards this country, an AFP team noted.

These civilians are fleeing despite Azerbaijan’s promise, reiterated Monday by its president Ilham Aliev, that the rights of Armenians in this enclave conquered by its army would be “guaranteed”.

He spoke alongside his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan, a key player in the region, just a few days after the victory of Azerbaijani soldiers against the troops of the self-proclaimed “republic” of Nagorno Karabakh, a region mainly populated by Armenians. , attached in 1921 to Azerbaijan by Soviet power.

The European Union is due to receive senior representatives of Armenia and Azerbaijan in Brussels on Tuesday, two former Soviet republics which clashed militarily in Nagorno Karabakh from 1988 to 1994 (30,000 dead) and in the fall of 2020 (6,500). dead). The death toll from last week’s blitzkrieg invasion is 200, according to the Armenian side.

Simon Mordue, principal diplomatic adviser to the President of the European Council Charles Michel, will chair this meeting in Brussels. Azerbaijan and Armenia, as well as France and Germany, will be represented by their national security advisers. The EU Special Representative for the South Caucasus, Estonian diplomat Toivo Klaar, will also participate.

Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian and the Azerbaijani President will meet on October 5 in Granada, Spain, with the participation of French President Emmanuel Macron, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and European Council President Charles Michel, a meeting planned long-standing which has not been cancelled.

In the meantime, the influx of refugees from Nagorno Karabakh onto Armenian soil continues, with huge traffic jams on the only road linking its “capital” Stepanakert to Armenia.

Azerbaijan has pledged to allow rebels who surrender their weapons to go to Armenia.

Many fear that Armenians will flee en masse from Nagorno-Karabakh as Azerbaijani forces tighten their grip.

Because in addition to the anxiety that reigns among the approximately 120,000 inhabitants of the region, the humanitarian situation remains very tense.

In front of the Goris theater, in the Armenian region of Syunik, white minibuses arrive constantly. Others leave, their trunks loaded with luggage, towards Yerevan and the country’s major cities.

The influx into this city of around twenty thousand inhabitants, the first step for refugees from Nagorno Karabakh, began on the evening of Sunday. Past the Kornidzor post, immediately after the border, those who have “nowhere to go”, like Valentina Asrian, are brought there.

“Who would have thought that the Turks (the name commonly given to Azerbaijanis in the region) would enter this historic Armenian village,” laments Valentina, whose brother-in-law was killed in last week’s bombings and who is holding her little one -son swaddled against his body.

Last week, Mr. Pashinian announced that his country of 2.9 million inhabitants was preparing to welcome 40,000 refugees.

Russia, which sees the Caucasus as its backyard and deployed a peacekeeping force in this territory three years ago after a brief offensive by Azerbaijan, for its part firmly rejected on Monday the criticisms made by Ms. .Pachinian who accused her of having abandoned her ally.