Thousands of people are demonstrating Friday, July 14 in the main city of Nagorno-Karabakh to demand the reopening of the Lachin corridor, the only road between Armenia and this region, closed this week by Azerbaijan, noted a correspondent of the ‘France Media Agency. About 6,000 demonstrators gathered in the morning in the main square of Stepanakert. The closure of the Lachin corridor, according to Armenia, raises the risk of a serious humanitarian crisis in Nagorno-Karabakh.
The day before, a Nagorno-Karabakh official urged Russia, which has had a contingent of peacekeepers there since the end of 2020, to restore traffic on the corridor. “I call on the Russian Federation […] to ensure the free movement of people and goods on the corridor,” State Minister Gurgen Nersisyan said on social media, assuring that “the situation is terrible, and will have irreversible consequences in a few days.”
Azerbaijan announced on Tuesday that it has suspended traffic on the corridor on the grounds that drivers working for the Armenian branch of the Red Cross have allegedly “smuggled” goods on this axis, which the ICRC denies. On Thursday, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian announced that he will participate in negotiations with Azerbaijan on Saturday under the aegis of the EU, while denouncing an illegal blockade of Nagorno-Karabakh.
Since December, Armenia has been alerting the international community to the risk of a serious humanitarian crisis in this region, due to shortages of food and medicine caused by traffic restrictions on the corridor. In April, Azerbaijan announced the creation of a roadblock at the entrance to the Lachin corridor, for security reasons, while armed incidents between Armenian and Azerbaijani forces still occur regularly.
The two Caucasian countries have been fighting over Nagorno-Karabakh since the late 1980s, resulting in two wars, the last of which, in 2020, saw the defeat of Armenian forces and significant territory gains for Azerbaijan. Part of the enclave, with an ethnic Armenian majority but located on the internationally recognized territory of Azerbaijan, remains under the control of Armenians, but it is now surrounded by territories held by Baku.