Armenian authorities reported on Wednesday the arrival of 42,500 refugees from Nagorno-Karabakh, or a third of the population of this separatist region where Azerbaijan led a lightning offensive last week. Baku opened the only road linking the enclave to Armenia on Sunday, four days after the capitulation of Armenian fighters and a ceasefire agreement that places Nagorno-Karabakh under Baku’s control.
Azerbaijani authorities said Wednesday that 192 of its soldiers and one civilian had died in the military operation carried out last week, according to a report released by the Ministry of Health. More than 500 soldiers were also injured during this lightning offensive by Azerbaijan in this disputed region of the Caucasus, mainly populated by Armenians.
The Armenian fighters, who surrendered their weapons, for their part reported 213 deaths. The total death toll from the invasion therefore amounts to more than 400 deaths. Since the signing of the ceasefire agreement which places the enclave under the control of Baku, more than 28,000 refugees have fled to Armenia. Christian-majority Armenia and Muslim-majority Azerbaijan have fought two deadly wars over the Nagorno-Karabakh region since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. The region now numbers up to 120,000 Ethnic Armenians, but is internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan.
At the same time, Azerbaijani authorities announced that they had arrested a former leader of Nagorno-Karabakh who was trying to travel to Armenia. Ruben Vardanyan, a businessman who led the separatist government of the enclave from November 2022 to February 2023, “was arrested,” the national border service said, without giving details of what he is accused of. Born in 1968, “he was handed over to the competent authorities in the capital Baku,” added the press release, accompanied by a photo of the person concerned flanked by two security guards.