Author: Emil Lazarian

|MOUNT AZHDAHAK AND MOUNT ARAGATS, ARMENIA

• Sharmila Devi

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(23)02275-4

Armenia's ambassador to the European Union, Tigran Balayan, said in an interview published on October 6 that Azerbaijan was actively preparing an invasion within weeks.

But on October 11 Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan told Armenian Public TV that that risk was "extremely low," and that there was no military buildup on either side of the border. 

The mixed messaging from Yerevan is puzzling, Balyan could be trying to create a sense of urgency, while Pashinyan tries to reduce tensions. 

The concern surrounds Azerbaijan's aim of realizing its "Zangezur Corridor" project to get land access to its exclave Nakhchivan through Armenian territory.

Famed Caucasus researcher Thomas de Waal recently described the corridor as the "next big issue," saying that Russia, Azerbaijan and Turkey all have their own interests in its creation – and that it may be taken by force. 

Armenia agreed to facilitate movement between mainland Azerbaijan and Nakhchivan when it signed the Russia-brokered ceasefire that ended the Second Nagorno-Karabakh War on November 10, 2020, whose ninth point reads: 

"All economic and transport connections in the region shall be unblocked. The Republic of Armenia shall guarantee the security of transport connections between the western regions of the Republic of Azerbaijan and the Nakhchivan Autonomous Republic in order to arrange unobstructed movement of persons, vehicles and cargo in both directions. The Border Guard Service of the Russian Federal Security Service [FSB] shall be responsible for overseeing the transport connections."

This language immediately gave rise to differing interpretations. For Armenia, it was a commitment to open up road and rail links. It also had implications for the Lachin corridor that connected Armenia with the then-Armenian-populated Nagorno-Karabakh region. 

For Azerbaijan, at least at first, the demand was for a seamless corridor running through Armenia's southern Syunik Region that was beyond Armenian sovereignty. 

But Baku softened its stance this February, when President Ilham Aliyev suggested the establishment of Armenian checkpoints on either end of the would-be Zangezur Corridor, while Azerbaijan would set up a checkpoint on the Lachin road connecting Armenia to Karabakh.

It was widely seen as Azerbaijan deprioritizing the corridor in favor of its real strategic goal of establishing full control over Karabakh.

Two months later, Azerbaijan unilaterally set up a checkpoint at Lachin, effectively formalizing the blockade of Nagorno-Karabakh that government-sponsored activists had been staging since December.

Then, last month, came Baku's lightning offensive to retake all of Nagorno-Karabakh and the consequent emptying of the region's 100,000-some Armenian population.

(Fin DePencier)

Now that the Karabakh issue is off the table, the question is, how much of a priority is the Zangezur corridor for Azerbaijan, and what is it willing to do to attain that goal? 

Recent moves by Azerbaijani leaders suggest it's not a matter of immediate concern. 

Baku is now pursuing an alternate corridor through Iran, whose territory has traditionally formed the main overland route from Azerbaijan to Nakhchivan. Prior to the 2020 war, the route started in eastern Azerbaijan, forcing Azerbaijanis to drive hundreds of kilometers through Iranian territory before reaching Nakhchivan. The new route will be considerably shorter, as it starts near the Armenian border, in Zangilan, a territory Azerbaijan recaptured in 2020.

Tehran has always vociferously opposed the Zangezur Corridor idea, repeatedly warning since the 2020 Karabakh war that it would not tolerate any changes to regional borders or the establishment of a "pan-Turkic" or "NATO" corridor along its northern frontier.

UK-based Azerbaijani analyst Fuad Shahbazov believes there has been a genuine policy shift from Baku.

"With the new transit route between Azerbaijan and Iran, the Zangezur Corridor project will shortly be implemented without Armenia's Syunik province," he wrote for BNE Intellinews, giving credence to Azerbaijani assurances that it respects Armenia's territorial integrity and does not plan to invade.

And some believe that, while the EU and U.S. did nothing to stop Azerbaijan from retaking Karabakh, an invasion of Armenia would jeopardize Baku's relations with the West. 

Nerses Kopalyan, an Armenian security analyst, told the EVN report podcast recently that the aim of the visit to Armenia by Samantha Power, the head of USAID, in the wake of Azerbaijan's takeover of Karabakh was "to make sure that Azerbaijan doesn't attack Armenia proper. This was the United States signaling to Azerbaijan."

But many in Armenia remain apprehensive. Azerbaijan made several incursions into Armenian territory since the 2020 war and currently holds an estimated 215 square kilometers of its territory. Azerbaijan has faced no consequences for these incursions, including the largest one, in September last year.

Baku continues to speak with strategic ambiguity about "Western Azerbaijan," the notion that all or some of the Republic of Armenia's territory is actually Azerbaijani. Baku has intermittently made explicit territorial claims, and at other times said that Azerbaijanis must be allowed to return to the land, regardless of who rules it.

And Yerevan similarly has reasons not to trust the intentions of two other regional players: its ostensible strategic ally, Russia, and Azerbaijan's strategic ally, Turkey. 

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, in remarks to his cabinet early this week, said, "If Armenia honors its commitments, specifically the opening of the Zangezur corridor, then Turkey will step-by-step normalize relations."

That could be seen as an effort to tie the Armenia-Turkey normalization process to the opening of the Zangezur Corridor, but Ankara's exact position and understanding of the corridor are hard to discern, according to Benyamin Poghosyan, a senior research fellow at Applied Policy Research Institute of Armenia.

In an interview with Eurasianet, Poghosyan also spoke about Armenian-Russian relations in the context of the Zangezur Corridor issue.  

He noted that Armenia's position on the route has also evolved over time, and become less amenable to Russian involvement. 

Indeed, in a recent interview, Pashinyan said he was ready to open "roads for Azerbaijan and Turkey," but that Armenia's sovereignty should be maintained and that "no third power should have control over any territory of Armenia."

"We are told that in the tripartite statement it is written that security should be ensured by Russia; I say that such a thing is not written," Pashinyan said. 

Russia disagrees, and says that Armenia should abide by the terms of the trilateral agreement in 2020, which does state its border troops be involved in "overseeing" the transport connections. 

For the Azerbaijani side, ambiguity in the text does not change the fundamental nature of that provision in the 2020 agreement. "If Armenia does not want a Russian presence, Azerbaijan views that as an Armenian-Russian problem. But regardless, Armenia promised the establishment of this route," says Poghosyan.

Poghosyan speculates how a new conflict could theoretically play out: Azerbaijan initiates a conflict, and then Russia puts a stop to it. "And Russia would tell Armenia: if you want us to stop Azerbaijan, simply you should do what you agreed to do in 2020," he said. 

That could then produce an ambiguous situation. "Some people will say that Russia pushed Armenia to provide the corridor, but someone else could say there was no mention of a corridor in the November 2020 document. So if Armenia is simply realizing this November 2020 statement; it isn't a corridor."

Aliyev may then say that Azerbaijan forced Armenia to provide a corridor. But Pashinyan could say no: this is not a corridor, because it will be under sovereign Armenian control. 

"Or Pashinyan could say that Russia, Turkey and Azerbaijan jointly forced Armenia to provide a corridor, and this is more proof that Russia is not an ally of Armenia, Russia is Armenia's adversary," Pogoshyan said.

India has shipped the first consignment of Pinaka multi-barrel rocket launcher (MBRL) rockets to a foreign country.

According to a post by Ordnance Factory Ambajri (OFAJ) on the social media platform X (formerly Twitter), the first consignment of Pinaka Mk-1 enhanced rocket (ER) was shipped on 5 October 2023.

The post stated, "OFAJ has successfully made a mark for itself on the global stage for Pinaka Rocket, with the flagging off, of the first consignment of Pinaka Mk I enhanced Rocket against export by Somnath Tripathy, Senior General Manager OFAJ on 5th October, in the presence of all stakeholders."

"This achievement is a testimonial of our craftsmanship and determination, and we are poised to contribute significantly to our Nation’s growth," the post further stated.

However, the post did not mention which country received the rockets, although Armenia is the likely recipient.

In September last year, Armenia ordered an undisclosed quantity of Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO)-developed Pinaka launchers, rockets, and associated equipments worth Rs 2,000 crore or $245 million.

These Pinaka Mk-1 ER rockets can strike land targets up to a distance of about 45 kilometres. A guided Pinaka Mk-2 rocket can strike targets at a range of 75 kilometres.

Another, even longer-range rocket, Pinaka Mk-2 ER, is under development, which will allow the Pinaka battery to hit targets at ranges of more than 120 kilometres.

According to reports, Pinaka launchers likely made their way to Armenia via Iran, in July this year, irking the Azerbaijani government.

Azerbaijan expressed concerns about the expanding military cooperation between Armenia and India and requested a reconsideration of India's decision to supply lethal weapons to Armenia.

Additionally, Armenia signed a deal worth $155 million with Kalyani Strategic Systems Limited for supplying an undisclosed amount of 155mm/52 calibre advanced towed artillery gun systems.

Stoking fears of an all-out Azeri incursion ‘within weeks’ is a self-fulfilling prophecy which could ultimately see Yerevan left in the lurch it sleepwalks into a conflict it can only lose.

The European Political Community (EPC) summitin Granada last week turned out to be yet another grandstanding get-together of do-nothing ideologues from across the continent with no clear deliverables or concrete plan of action going forward.

High on the agenda, alongside Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, heightened Serbia-Kosovo tensions and tackling a fresh wave of illegal migration, was Azerbaijan’s corrosive antics in Nagorno-Karabakh, even though its strongman leader Ilham Aliyev was missing in action during the two-day event.

Having cited France’s partisanship vis-à-vis Armenia and Turkey’s omission as grounds for Baku opting out at the last minute, this EU-led initiative was starkly reminiscent of the Jeddah peace talks four months ago which fruitlessly sought to lower the temperature between Moscow and Kyiv in the aggressor’s absence.

Besides dismissing ethnic cleansing allegations as a red herring, it was French Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna’s trip to Yerevan on October 3 which really infuriated Aliyev and could end up being a potential “Boris Johnson moment” which raises the stakes in the South Caucasus’ edition of the Russo-Ukrainian war.

Paris’ pledge to provide Armenia with interoperable military gear as well as 12.5 billion euros worth of humanitarian aid was perceived as a casus belliby Baku and risks ratcheting up bilateral tensions at a time when Europe has enough on its plate in the way of territorial disputes.

Despite throwing their weight behind Armenia and pressing for a sanctions crusade against Azerbaijan’s top brass, the European Parliament has few sticks at its disposal to neuter the latter. Unlike their Georgian counterparts who are on a tight leash and regard EU accession as the be-all and end-all, the Azeris remain visibly apathetic towards securing candidate status or even Schengen visa-free travel for that matter.

France’s President Emmanuel Macron recently conceded that although, “Azerbaijan seems to have a problem with international law”, boycotting the petrostate will ultimately prove “insignificant”.

As far as energy needs are concerned, Europe’s leaders have wised up to the sobering reality that they cannot have their cake and eat it too. Gone are the days of Western powers attempting to transform the resource-rich, developing nations they procure hydrocarbons from into Jeffersonian democracies and vanguards of human rights.

When it comes to former Warsaw Pact states queuing up for membership, there is an increasingly blurry line between being a bona fide strategic partner and a mere vassal of the European Union. The Aliyev regime, for its part, read the tea leaves early on and has since pursued a multi-vector foreign policy as opposed to binding their future to a crisis-ridden bloc which last expanded in 2013. That said, Azerbaijan is a member of the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP), the Eastern Partnership (EaP) and hosted the inaugural European Games in 2015.

With the ink barely dry on last year’s joint MoU to double gas imports from Azerbaijan to 20 billion cubic metres a year by 2027 and expand the 3500km-long Southern Gas Corridor (SGC), outspoken MEPs are unlikely to renege or backpedal given the dearth of alternative fossil fuel suppliers whose morals correspond with the EU’s set of values.

As Brussels moves to diversify away from Russian crude and LNG purchases, Baku had come to be seen as the lesser of two evils up until its so-called “lightning offensive” on September 19 which set the stage for a mass exodus of roughly 120,000 Karabakh Armenians.

It is worth recalling that European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen used the terms “reliable” and “trustworthy” in reference to the family dictatorship during her 2022 state visit. From her standpoint, the lack of civil liberties and press freedom in Azerbaijan is more than offset by its refreshingly secular and egalitarian society for a Muslim-majority jurisdiction.

Considering the Caspian nation’s growing geostrategic importance to the EU, realpolitikis bound to kick in sooner or later and take precedence over airy-fairy Western platitudes about defending democracy and standing up for rule of law. As such, Armenia would do well to take these overcooked narratives with a boulder of salt and not count on external intervention or support from its like-minded allies to fend off further Azeri irredentism.

Arguably, a blessing in disguise to have emerged from Yerevan and Baku upping the ante is that their sporadic clashes have shed light on Russia’s waning influence across the post-Soviet space. The Armenian Parliament’s recent vote to join the International Criminal Court (ICC) just months after Vladimir Putin’s arrest warrant was a major gut punch to the Kremlin, as was Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan’s decision to skip the CIS conference in Bishkek and his refusal to host Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) military drills earlier this year.

Rather than instilling the fear of God in erstwhile USSR colonies who fail to toe the line, Putin’s barbarism in Ukraine has incidentally galvanised their westward pivot.

One notable exception, however, is Georgia. The country’s ruling elite has run roughshod over its Europhile citizenry and essentially sold them down the river by kowtowing to Moscow. Whereas Azerbaijan wasted no time in endorsing Georgian Vice Parliament Speaker Gia Volski’s call for Tbilisi to serve as an interlocutor, the jury is still out on Armenia’s receptivity to this proposal.

One might argue that its mediation offer is nothing more that a symbolic gesture intended to help Georgia get back in the EU’s good graces. The fact that Azeri natural gas constitutes approximately 80 per cent of its total imports casts serious doubt on the ruling Georgian Dream party’s impartiality were they to engage in peacemaking efforts, not to mention the exorbitant transit revenues they accrue from the South Caucasus Pipeline (SCP) that connects Azerbaijan to Turkey.

At the same time, Georgia has become something of a pressure cooker which can barely get its own domestic affairs in order, let alone those of third parties.

With petty government infighting, incarcerated ex-president Mikheil Saakashvili reportedly at death’s door, an inflationary cycle spiralling out of control, social decay emanating from the massive influx of Russian draft dodgers and the Kremlin’s plans to establish a permanent naval base in annexed Abkhazia, it is only a matter of time before a popular uprising erupts in Georgia.

Even if a colour revolution were to be miraculously averted, authoritarian buccaneering by Prime Minister Irakli Garbishvili and party chairman Irakli Kobakhidze means that prospective Georgian-led negotiations are likely to be skewed heavily in favour of an ideologically-aligned Baku.

To make matters worse for Armenia, Iran and Azerbaijan have taken active steps towards reconciliation after years of animosity and mutual distrust. This includes agreeing on the construction of a new road from the semi-autonomous Nakhchivan exclave to Azerbaijan proper via northwestern Iran and the possible reopening of the Azeri embassy in Tehran following an armed attack last January.

Finally, Turkey’s vested interest in driving a greater wedge between both warring sides cannot go unnoticed.

Azerbaijan’s triumph in the Second Karabakh War three years ago was largely down the lethal cocktail of Turkish Bayraktar TB2combat UAVs and sophisticated Israeli defensive technology it had been equipped with at the time.

Ankara’s subsequent ‘drone diplomacy’ has proven somewhat conducive to normalising ties with the Gulf Arab monarchies weaning themselves off excessive reliance on US-manufactured arms.

Azerbaijan is also a critical artery in President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s ‘pan-Turkism’ agenda as he seeks to expand Turkey’s economic and political clout throughout Central Asia at the expense of Russia and China.

Encircled by bad faith actors, Armenia must accept that a cut and dried lasting solution is unlikely to be brokered by outside forces. Unless Pashinyan bites the bullet and engages directly with his opposite number in Baku to establish a negotiated settlement—even if doing so entails making minor concessions such as opening the Zangezur corridor—Armenia looks set to reap the whirlwind of overplaying its hand.

https://emerging-europe.com/voices/why-armenia-will-have-a-hard-time-mobilising-the-international-community-in-its-latest-standoff-with-azerbaijan/

What with Russia’s bloody invasion of Ukraine raging unabated, and now Israel’s retaliation after extensive Hamas terror attacks from Gaza, it’s understandable that journalists, their audiences and politicians have paid little attention to a massive ongoing humanitarian crisis in interior Asia where western media lack observers on the ground.

Beginning Sept. 19, Azerbaijan’s military crushed the self-proclaimed (and not internationally recognized) Artsakh republic in the mountainous Nagorno-Karabakh enclave within its borders.

The attack panicked and drove out at least 100,000 ethnic Armenians — now forced to cope as refugees in neighboring Armenia. This followed Azerbaijan’s cutoff of the crucial transit corridor from Armenia that had resulted in dire shortages of food, fuel and medical supplies. One factor here is the erosion of Russia’s history of providing Armenia’s security and regional peace-keeping because of its Ukraine entanglement.

The September takeover of the population’s ancient homeland is a straight-up case of “ethnic cleansing,” according to the European Parliament and a Council on Foreign Relations analysis. “In one fell swoop, one of the world’s most brutal dictatorships destroyed one of the world’s oldest Christian communities,” writes Joel Veldkamp, the head of international communications with Christian Solidarity International.

The vanishing ethnic enclave dated back to 1,722 years ago when Armenia became the first state to collectively adopt the Christian religion. As geography evolved, the Nagorno Armenians found themselves caught in a sector within Azerbaijan.

The latest “World Christian Encyclopedia” edition reports that Azerbaijan is 96% Muslim while most of the Nagorno population, and 84% of the population in neighboring Armenia, belong to the Armenian Apostolic (Orthodox) Church. Tensions were contained when the entire area was controlled under the Soviet Union, but that regime’s collapse led to the ongoing religio-ethnic struggle between newly independent Armenia and Azerbaijan.

The Nagorno collapse is historically important in its own right but, importantly, it raises how religious liberty should be understood and championed. The problem is posed in an Oct. 3 article in First Things by Veldkamp (who is reachable at Solidarity’s Switzerland headquarters [email protected] or 41 0 44 982 33 33).

Veldkamp believes that the “almost complete silence” among Christians about the Nagorno takeover is “shameful,” but also “strange” in light of the rise since the 1990s of “a robust and vocal movement on behalf of persecuted Christians abroad,” especially among conservative western churches.

He proposes that this movement is misguided in one fundamental way. “Religious freedom” is framed in terms of individual human rights. That’s important, to be sure, but too many Christians dismiss Nagorno-type crises when they do not involve official actions against things like holding worship services, building of churches, Christian education of youngsters or Bible distribution, as in Communist or Muslim countries.

Instead, as with the “Armenian Genocide” in Turkey a century ago, governments seek to “exterminate a Christian people (whether practicing or not)” under a hostile regime that may see a threat to its hegemony. In other words, persecution can be aimed at populations as well as individuals, which is not how Christians in the American political system think about such matters.

Veldkamp adds that this conception allows “the U.S. foreign policy establishment” to define persecution as “primarily a problem of individual liberty rather than a question involving ethnic identity, peoples or even nations.” This can mean broader American foreign policy avoids questioning.

According to this Solidarity specialist, potential crises currently loom for a Christian population facing threats of foreign “oppression, military attack and ethnic cleansing” in Armenia’s southern Syunik province, and similarly for sectors within India, Indonesia, Myanmar, Nigeria and Sudan.

In addition to the aforementioned genocide, Armenia across history has all too rarely enjoyed national independence. It has been dominated over the centuries by Arabs, Persians, Byzantine Greeks, Ottoman Turks, Russians and, finally, the Soviets.

An ecclesiastical point for writers to keep in mind: The Armenian Apostolic Church is part of so-called Oriental Orthodoxy, also prominent in Egypt, Ethiopia and Syria, as opposed to the Eastern Orthodoxy of Russia, Ukraine, Greece, et al.

As such, Armenians believe in the divine and human natures in Jesus Christ as defined by Christianity’s first three ecumenical councils, but not the further doctrine proclaimed by the Council of Chalcedon in A.D. 451. See this detailed explanation.

Resources:

* Armenian Orthodox, Protestant and Catholic church leaders in the U.S. issued this appeal last week.

* Congressional Research Service’s 2021 backgrounder on the Nagorno-Karabakh situation (click here).

* Council on Foreign Relations analysis can be found here.

* This Google search contains several essential terms, leading to additional resources and news reports.

FIRST IMAGE: Uncredited photo accompanying this feature — “After Russia’s Nagorno-Karabakh ceasefire, could Turkey step up next for a lasting peace?” — at the website of the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C.

• Trigger warning: Contains descriptions of violence and death

It was the afternoon of 19 September on a late-summer school day for Gurgen that the carnage erupted with sudden ferocity. The seven-year-old had just returned from classes when explosions sounded in Sarnaghbyur, his small village in the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh in the South Caucasus, known to Armenians as Artsakh.

Azerbaijan, which had blockaded Nagorno-Karabakh for over nine months, starving the 120,000 ethnic Armenian inhabitants, had launched a massive assault across the region, which lies just east of Armenia proper, within the official borders of Azerbaijan. After 100,000 people fled the attack, MEPs in the European Parliament have said the attack amounts to ethnic cleansing.

Garik Aleksanyan, the mayor of Sarnaghbyur, attempted to control the situation and prevent panic in the village, directing residents to what he thought was a safe place behind a hill in the hope of escaping the shelling from Azerbaijani positions a few kilometres away.

“Three very large shells exploded, throwing the whole earth from under our feet into the air,” Gurgen said from his hospital bed in the regional capital of Stepanakert, 30km away from his village. Speaking to openDemocracy with the permission of his mother, he was eerily calm as he gestured to demonstrate the bomb blast.

Shrapnel cut into Gurgen’s hand, leg, and forehead. Other children around him were even more severely wounded. His aunt was dead.

“Rozig’s cheeks were pierced by shrapnel, and Ashot’s eyes were damaged,” he said, speaking of two other children. “Mikael’s throat was severely damaged, and the son of the village mayor’s son had shrapnel piercing through his nose. Auntie Gohar’s nose was severely injured by shrapnel, she passed away.”

Aleksanyan, the mayor, had walked away from the group to try and find phone service – the shelling was relentless, and the villagers had no way to escape. He needed to ask officials in Stepanakert to send immediate help. But the phone lines had been cut.

“By the time I returned, the villagers had been shelled again. I found my son there, bleeding,” said Aleksanyan, who also discovered his mother-in-law and father dead and his wife and daughter wounded.

After nine months under siege from Azerbaijan, which surrounds the enclave, no one but the mayor had enough fuel to drive to the hospital. So Aleksanyan gathered his 15-year-old son and the other wounded children into his car.

Though he was injured, Gurgen helped his younger siblings into the car. “I took my sister first, and then my brother,” he said proudly.

The mayor’s son’s condition was so critical that there was no time to reach the largest hospital in Stepanakert. Instead, Aleksanyan took him to the nearest hospital in the town of Askeran along the border with Azerbaijan, hoping his son could be treated quickly at the understaffed, rundown facility.

“They promised me they would operate on my son and bring him back,” Aleksanyan said.

Leaving his son at the Askeran hospital, Aleksanyan proceeded through incessant bombing, past fires and burned vehicles, to a far more well-equipped children’s hospital in Stepanakert, about 20km to the east, where he handed over the wounded.

“In that moment, I received the news that my son was no more,” Aleksanyan said in shock, his voice empty.

The methods used to attack Sarnaghbyur also played out in other villages across Nagorno-Karabakh, a mountainous territory that had operated as a self-governing entity since Armenia and Azerbaijan fought a war over the region in the early 1990s. Azerbaijan captured part of the territory in a 44-day war in 2020, after which Russian peacekeepers were deployed in the area. But that didn’t stop occasional attacks by Azerbaijan.

Since December 2022, Azerbaijan has blockaded what remained of the autonomous enclave, cutting off the supply of food, medicine, fuel, and basic necessities. That action, designed to starve the population into submission or flight, drew charges of genocide from an array of international experts and watchdog groups.

On 19 September, Azerbaijan launched a large-scale offensive against Nagorno-Karabakh. Azerbaijan’s defence minister had said in a statement that this so-called ‘anti-terrorist operation’ targeted “only legitimate military installations and infrastructure” “using high-precision weapons.”

But according to eyewitness accounts by residents and officials to openDemocracy, Azerbaijan’s military attack included indiscriminate shelling not only along the line of contact, but also residential neighbourhoods in Stepanakert, as well as towns and villages throughout Nagorno-Karabakh.

Within a day, Azerbaijani forces quickly overwhelmed local defences, killing over 200 people, including civilians.

A ceasefire was signed in which Azerbaijan agreed to stop the bombing if the local unrecognised government surrendered and disarmed. Days later, without the intervention of any outside powers, Nagorno-Karabakh president Samvel Shahramanyan was forced to sign a decree dissolving state institutions by the end of the year. “The Republic of Nagorno-Karabakh (Artsakh) ceases its existence,” the declaration read.

According to local officials, of the 76 residents of Sarnaghbyur village, five were killed, including three children, and 15 more were injured in the attacks. Half of the six children who attended the village's elementary school died. Four people were also captured, three of whom are women.

Thousands of forcibly displaced people spent over a week on the streets of Stepanakert, transforming the city into an open-air refugee camp, where people wandered in obscurity like ghosts, desperately seeking food, medical aid and warm clothing. Without fuel, trucks were not able to collect rubbish, and the streets reeked of rotting garbage.

Finally, on 24 September, Azerbaijan allowed the first group of refugees to enter Armenia, after they spent days camped outside Russian military bases. According to Armenian government officials, by 30 September, 100,417 forcibly displaced people – almost the entire population – had been evacuated to Armenia.

Aleksanyan was evacuated from Stepanakert to Goris, Armenia, with the help of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), along with his wounded wife and daughter and the bodies of his mother-in-law, father and son.

Azerbaijani president Ilham Aliyev has publicly promised to guarantee the rights and security of ethnic Armenians living in the region, claiming that those who fled did so of their own choosing. Yet international experts, including a former chief prosecutor for the International Criminal Court, have said there is “reasonable basis to believe that a genocide is being committed” against the Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh. Like many Karabakh Armenians, Gurgen said he desperately wants to return to his village, but cannot imagine living there safely under Azerbaijani rule.

After a 30-hour journey, Gurgen, his mother and four siblings, reached Goris as well, with only the clothes they were wearing when they fled the bombardment. As refugees, they have been given temporary housing at a hostel in a nearby town, having left behind everything in Sarnaghbyur.