Armenian-Azerbaijani Conflict: Endless Exodus From Nagorno-Karabakh
Carnage: a gas storage facility explodes. Among the refugees, there are at least 20 dead and 290 wounded. In the Armenian capital Yerevan, hundreds of protesters are demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, who is due to meet with Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev in Granada, Spain, on October 5.
The exodus of biblical proportions from Nagorno-Karabakh, an Armenian enclave inside Azerbaijan, continues unabated. The Armenian government stated that on the morning of Tuesday, September 26, “13,350 refugees from Nagorno-Karabakh arrived on the territory of Armenia.” According to the Yerevan authorities, these are “people forcibly displaced by Azerbaijanis.”
The mass evacuation began on the night from Sunday to Monday after the start of a military operation, during which the Azerbaijani army established control over almost the entire territory of Nagorno-Karabakh, populated mainly by ethnic Armenians. After brutal Azerbaijani shelling that also cost the lives of six Russian peacekeepers, on September 20, the separatist formations of this territory, recognized by the international community as “part of Azerbaijan,” were forced to lay down their arms and surrender.
“The government of Armenia, a former Soviet republic located in the mountainous region of the Caucasus, on the border of Asia and Europe, provides housing to all those who have nowhere to live,” the Armenian authorities said in a statement. They added that registration of refugees continues, and that there is no end in sight to the exodus. In an interview with Reuters, David Babayan, an adviser to the former government of Karabakh, said that “more than 120 thousand residents of the self-proclaimed republic, which is nearly its entire population, have expressed their intention to leave these lands once and for all and move to Armenia.”
During the exodus, when hundreds of cars were queuing for gasoline distributed freely by the Armenian authorities, a very large explosion, for reasons still unknown, leveled a warehouse containing 100 tons of fuel. As a result, at least 20 people were killed and another 290 people suffered serious burns and injuries. Several dozen people were hospitalized “in critical condition” in a military field hospital set up by Russian peacekeepers near the site of the massacre.
Meanwhile, protests continued in Yerevan on Tuesday against Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, whom demonstrators branded as a “traitor to the national interests of Armenia.” A high-level meeting between Pashinyan and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev is scheduled for October 5 in Granada (Spain). The summit will be prepared by two groups of Armenian and Azerbaijani experts who have already arrived in Brussels for consultations through the mediation of the EU authorities.
