As a result of the “anti-terrorism measures” launched by Azerbaijan on Tuesday, September 19, at least two civilians, including one child, were killed in Nagorno-Karabakh. About it reported at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the unrecognized Nagorno-Karabakh. The Prosecutor General’s Office of Azerbaijan, for its part, announced at least one civilian death, killed during shelling from Karabakh.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the self-proclaimed republic stated that as a result of shelling from Azerbaijan, 11 people were injured, eight of them were children.
Later, the ombudsman of the unrecognized republic Gegham Stepanyan clarifiedthat the number of people wounded during shelling from Azerbaijan has increased to 23 people.
In turn, the Prosecutor General’s Office of Azerbaijan stated that as a result of shelling from Karabakh, a 56-year-old man, a resident of the city of Shusha, was killed (this city was returned to Azerbaijani control in 2020). The department claims that the man died as a result of shelling of Shushi by “illegally created formations of the Armenian armed forces using large-caliber weapons, including mortars.”
Authorities of the self-proclaimed Nagorno-Karabakh Republic contacted to Azerbaijan with a proposal to stop hostilities and hold negotiations.
In response, Baku stated that they were ready to meet with ethnic Armenians if they fulfilled a number of conditions. The presidential administration of Azerbaijan, in particular, stated that in order to stop anti-terrorist measures in Karabakh, illegal armed groups must surrender their weapons, and the authorities of the region “must be dissolved.”
On the afternoon of September 19, Azerbaijan announced the start of “anti-terrorist measures” in Nagorno-Karabakh. The Nagorno-Karabakh Defense Army (a military structure operating in the unrecognized “Nagorno-Karabakh Republic”) reported that on September 19 at around 11:10 am, Azerbaijani armed forces violated the ceasefire in the Askeran region by using a mortar.
Immediately after Baku’s statement, residents of Karabakh began reporting heavy artillery shelling.
The National Security Service of Azerbaijan states that the day before, the Karabakh military allegedly committed sabotage on the 58th kilometer of the Ahmedbeyli-Fuzuli-Shushi highway, planting an anti-tank mine in the area. As a result of its explosion on September 19 at about 03:45, two civilians were killed. In addition, Baku claims the death of four Azerbaijani police officers who tried to get to the “scene of terrorism.”
The Nagorno-Karabakh Defense Army said it regards Baku’s statements “as another piece of disinformation.”
The territorial dispute between Armenia and Azerbaijan over Nagorno-Karabakh has been going on since the late 1980s. The Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Region, populated mainly by ethnic Armenians, with the support of Armenia, declared secession from the Azerbaijan SSR, and in September 1991 announced the creation of the “Nagorno-Karabakh Republic”.
During the armed conflict of 1988–1994, 30 thousand people died in the separatist region. Nagorno-Karabakh and several adjacent regions of Azerbaijan came under the de facto control of the Armenian armed forces. As a result, hundreds of thousands of people, mostly ethnic Azerbaijanis, became refugees and internally displaced persons.
The “Nagorno-Karabakh Republic” is not officially recognized by any UN country, including Armenia. In 1993, the UN adopted four resolutions demanding the withdrawal of Armenian troops from the Karabakh region and recognition of the territory as part of Azerbaijan.
After another escalation of the situation at the end of September 2020, Azerbaijan returned to its control the areas around Nagorno-Karabakh and took the ancient and symbolically significant city of Shusha (Shushi in Armenian). The day after the capture of Shushi, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a ceasefire statement in Nagorno-Karabakh.
Under the terms of the agreement, Armenia and Azerbaijan are assigned the territories where troops were located at the time the document was signed. A Russian peacekeeping mission is stationed along the contact line.
After this, Azerbaijan began a blockade of areas of Karabakh populated by ethnic Armenians: checkpoints were set up on the only road that did not allow any cargo, including food and humanitarian aid, to enter the region. Residents of Armenian areas of Karabakh have reported hunger in recent weeks.
