Global Courant
LONDON — About 50,000 ethnic Armenians have now fled the disputed enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh, according to local officials, as the exodus caused by Azerbaijan’s takeover of the region appeared to accelerate, with fears the entire population could leave.
More than a third of the population has now left, while nearly 12,000 people left overnight, with thousands more still arriving in Armenia on Wednesday morning, in what the Armenian government has called the enclave’s “ethnic cleansing.”
Azerbaijan announced on Wednesday that it had detained the former leader of the enclave’s unrecognized Armenian government as he tried to enter Armenia. Ruben Vardanyan, a billionaire businessman who made his fortune in Russia, moved to Nagorno-Karabakh in 2022 and served as head of the government for several months before resigning earlier this year.
Ruben Vardanyan, a former top official in the separatist ethnic Armenian administration of Nagorno-Karabakh, is held by Azerbaijani border personnel in an undisclosed location, Azerbaijan, in this photo released on September 27, 2023.
State Border Service of Azerbaijan via Reuters
Vardanyan’s detention indicated that Azerbaijan may prosecute members of the Armenian separatist authorities who remain and is likely to further stoke fear among Armenians remaining there.
The exodus of Armenian civilians has begun after Azerbaijan’s successful military offensive last week, which quickly defeated local Armenian authorities, reasserted Azerbaijan’s control over the mountainous enclave and brought an abrupt end to a 35-year conflict.
Cars, buses and trucks loaded with families and belongings they could carry have flowed through the border crossing since Azerbaijan reopened the only road to Armenia for the first time since the blockade of the enclave nine months ago. The first town on the Armenian side, Goris, was flooded with people who came to register as refugees. An 80-kilometer traffic jam snaked along the mountain road from the enclave, visible in satellite images released by Maxar Technologies.
Ethnic Armenians put their belongings on a tractor as they evacuate from Stepanakert on September 27, 2023. Armenia said on September 27, 2023 that 42,500 refugees from Nagorno-Karabakh have arrived since Azerbaijan’s lightning offensive.
Siranush Sargsyan/AFP via Getty Images
The death toll from a devastating explosion on Monday at a makeshift gas station used by refugees in the enclave has reached 68, with 105 people still dead and dozens seriously injured, local officials said. Helicopters evacuated 168 injured people from the region’s capital, according to unrecognized Armenian authorities in Nagorno-Karabakh. Shortages of food, medicine and fuel have been reported within the enclave.
Nagorno-Karabakh is recognized as the territory of Azerbaijan, but has been controlled by ethnic Armenians since Armenia and Azerbaijan fought a bloody war during the collapse of the Soviet Union. Hundreds of thousands of Azerbaijanis were expelled from the region during that war that ended when ethnic Armenians established an unrecognized state called the Republic of Artsakh.
In 2020, Azerbaijan reopened the conflict and launched a full-scale war that decisively defeated Armenia and forced the country to largely relinquish its claims to Nagorno-Karabakh. Russia brokered a ceasefire and deployed peacekeepers to enforce it, who continue to be deployed.
An elderly female refugee looks on and holds a blanket, with the Karabakh Mountains in the background, at the Armenian Red Cross center near Kornidzor on September 27, 2023.
Alain Jocard/AFP via Getty Images
But last week, Azerbaijan launched a new offensive that forced ethnic Armenian authorities to surrender after just two days of fighting and accept the enclave’s reintegration into Azerbaijan. Since then, ethnic Armenians have tried to leave, fearing they will face persecution and violence under Azerbaijan.
Narine Shakaryan, a grandmother of four who arrived at the border on Tuesday, told Reuters it had taken them 24 hours to complete the 75 kilometer drive. They had had no food.
An older woman looks on next to a car in a street of Goris, on September 27, 2023.
Alain Jocard/AFP via Getty Images
“It was terrible, children were hungry and crying,” Shakaryan told Reuters at the border. “We ran away just to survive, that’s all.”
US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken on Tuesday called on Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev, urging him to “refrain from further hostilities in Nagorno-Karabakh” and provide unhindered humanitarian access.
“He called on President Aliyev to guarantee the residents of Nagorno-Karabakh that they can live safely in their homes and that their rights will be protected,” the Foreign Ministry said in a readout of the call. He also urged Aliyev to commit to a broad amnesty for Armenian fighters and to allow an international observer mission to Nagorno-Karabakh.
Samantha Power, the head of USAID, visited the border crossing in Armenia on Tuesday and met with refugees there. She also called on Azerbaijan to allow international access to the enclave.
