Empty supermarkets in Stepanakert (Siranush Sargsyan, Twitter)
Artsakh authorities have announced that all public transportation routes have been terminated as of July 25 due to a fuel shortage arising from Azerbaijan’s blockade.
“Artsakh is now the only area in the world that is in full isolation and siege, devoid of any humanitarian aid and international presence. Without urgent international support to this disaster zone, Artsakh could be likened to a concentration camp, with all its dire consequences,” Artsakh President Arayik Harutyunyan said during a press conference on July 24.
Public transportation within Stepanakert, the capital of Artsakh, has been suspended since July 18 due to a lack of fuel. Until Tuesday, buses that traveled between Stepanakert and the other towns and villages of Artsakh had remained in operation, supplying the capital city with produce from rural regions and transporting people to work or school. However, as of July 25, those routes have also been terminated, bringing all public transportation across the region to a halt.
Azerbaijan has placed Artsakh under blockade since December 2022, cutting off the region from imports of food, medicine and other basic goods and restricting travel between Artsakh and the outside world. The blockade has been compounded by the ongoing disruption of natural gas flows, which enter Artsakh from Armenia through a single pipeline that runs through Azerbaijani-controlled territory. Artsakh authorities say that Azerbaijan is deliberately obstructing the gas supply in order to precipitate an energy crisis.
Artsakh authorities say that the lack of fuel is affecting the operation of ambulances. Artsakh Health Minister Vardan Tadevosyan said that the number of emergency vehicles transporting patients to hospitals has already been reduced to preserve the fuel supply. Medical workers have been trying to provide remote assistance to people in need of medical attention. Sending ambulances to towns and villages from Stepanakert during medical emergencies has become impossible.
“We have two cases where the ambulance did not arrive on time. I believe that the patients could have been saved if it was possible to get to the hospital faster. Those cases may increase due to the lack of fuel,” Tadevosyan told Artsakhpress.
Signs in central Stepanakert protesting Azerbaijan’s blockade (Siranush Sargsyan, Twitter)
The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has evacuated 24 patients from Artsakh to Armenia for medical treatment over the last few days. The ICRC has evacuated more than 600 people requiring medical care since the start of the blockade in December 2022.
The blockade has severely compromised Artsakh’s healthcare system, forcing the suspension of planned surgeries in Artsakh hospitals. While the ICRC has intermittently transported patients from Artsakh to Armenia, Azerbaijan has twice blocked the ICRC from doing so, on June 15 for 10 days then on July 10 for four days. Azerbaijan justified its restrictions on ICRC activity, claiming that ICRC vehicles are used to transport cigarettes, mobile phone parts and much-needed fuel to Artsakh.
Artsakh authorities also say that, due to the suspension of public transportation, it will no longer be possible to deliver agricultural goods from rural regions to densely populated towns and cities. Food is already scarce due to the blockade, and the shelves of Stepanakert’s major grocery stores are empty of food products.
The ICRC and the Russian peacekeeping mission based in Artsakh are the sole entities that have delivered humanitarian assistance, including food and medicine, to the region since the start of the blockade. However, Azerbaijan has prohibited the ICRC and Russian peacekeepers from transporting humanitarian aid to Artsakh since June 15.
The ICRC warns that fruits, vegetables and bread are scarce and costly in Artsakh, while dairy products, sunflower oil, cereal, fish, chicken and other food products are not available at all. Artsakh also faces a shortage of life-saving medication and essentials, including hygiene products and baby formula.
“Our humanitarian aid convoys are a lifeline for the population in this area. With these convoys blocked, our concern is that the humanitarian situation will further deteriorate. We are most worried about those who cannot help themselves. The sick and people with chronic diseases are particularly at risk, as are the elderly, infirm and children. For us to operate here, we need the sides to reach a humanitarian consensus. This is life-saving work, and it must be allowed to continue,” said Ariane Bauer, ICRC’s regional director for Eurasia, in a July 25 statement.
The ICRC said it has not delivered humanitarian items to Artsakh for several weeks through the Berdzor (Lachin) Corridor or any other routes, including Aghdam. Government-sponsored Azerbaijani protesters posing as eco-activists had closed the Berdzor Corridor, the sole route connecting Artsakh and Armenia, from December 12, 2022 to April 23, 2023. They ended their protest after Azerbaijan set up a military checkpoint at the entrance to the corridor from Armenia, placing movement along the corridor completely under the control of Azerbaijani border guards.
The EU said they are taking the ICRC warnings seriously. “The ICRC is doing a tremendous job in very challenging circumstances on the ground. It is important that they are able to operate freely,” EU Special Representative for the South Caucasus Toivo Klaar said in a tweet sharing the ICRC statement.
Azerbaijan’s Foreign Ministry said it “took note” of the ICRC statement. It said that the Armenian side has rejected Azerbaijan’s offer to deliver “larger quantities of medicine and cargo” via Aghdam.
Azerbaijani leaders have recently proposed delivering humanitarian supplies to Artsakh from Azerbaijan through the Aghdam-Stepanakert road, rather than from Armenia through the Berdzor Corridor. The EU seemed to support this proposal, when European Council President Charles Michel said he would “encourage humanitarian deliveries from both sides to ensure the needs of the population are met,” following a trilateral meeting with Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev in Brussels on July 15. The announcement sparked criticism from across Artsakh and Armenia as an unacceptable alternative to opening the Berdzor Corridor.
Armenian PM Nikol Pashinyan holds a press conference (RA Prime Minister, July 25)
During a press conference on July 25, Pashinyan said he does not have the “necessity or mandate” to discuss Azerbaijan’s proposal to deliver humanitarian aid to Artsakh through Aghdam. He said he did not discuss the issue during the trilateral meeting in Brussels.
“I did not discuss this question, because I do not think I have the mandate to discuss such a question. I have a mandate to discuss the Lachin Corridor question, because it was created through the Nov. 9, 2020 trilateral announcement, of which I am a signatory. In these platforms, we only discuss issues related to the illegal blockade of the Lachin Corridor and its reopening,” Pashinyan said.
London-based South Caucasus scholar Laurence Broers warned that the “long forewarned humanitarian crisis is now unfolding in Karabakh.”
“The blockade renders irrelevant any talk of the civil integration of Karabakh Armenians. It vindicates the worst fears of the Karabakh Armenian population vis-a-vis the Azerbaijani state,” Broers tweeted on July 25. “The starvation of the Armenian population will leave a new legacy of unforgiving distrust canceling any hopes of reconstituting community relations.”
Lillian Avedian is a staff writer for the Armenian Weekly. Her writing has also been published in the Los Angeles Review of Books, Hetq and the Daily Californian. She is pursuing master’s degrees in journalism and Near Eastern Studies at New York University. A human rights journalist and feminist poet, Lillian’s first poetry collection Journey to Tatev was released with Girls on Key Press in spring of 2021.