Global Courant
KORNIDZOR, Armenia – The flow of refugees from Nagorno-Karabakh slowed to a trickle on Saturday, as Armenia said almost the entire population of the breakaway territory had already fled after Azerbaijan took back power.
An AFP journalist at the Kornidzor crossing into Armenia saw only a few ambulances arriving, while border guards said they were waiting for a last few buses.
In the nearest town of Goris, hundreds of exhausted refugees waited among their luggage in the central square for the government to provide shelter.
Azerbaijan’s lightning-quick military takeover of the ethnic Armenian enclave last week led to a sudden exodus that has rewritten the centuries-old ethnic makeup of the disputed region.
Armenia said on Saturday that 100,437 people, out of an estimated population of 120,000, had fled since the breakaway region saw its decades-long struggle against Azerbaijani rule end in sudden defeat.
Yerevan said 14 bedridden patients had died during or shortly after being evacuated from the area along the lonely mountain road.
Mr Artak Beglaryan, a former separatist official, said “the last groups” of Nagorno-Karabakh residents were heading to Armenia on Saturday.
“At most a few hundred people remain, most of whom are civil servants, emergency services workers, volunteers and some persons with special needs,” he wrote on social media.
Armenia – a country of 2.8 million inhabitants – faces a major challenge in accommodating the sudden influx of refugees. According to authorities, 35,000 people were now in temporary housing.
Yerevan has accused Azerbaijan of waging a campaign of “ethnic cleansing” to cleanse Nagorno-Karabakh of its Armenian population.
But Baku has denied the claim and publicly called on the area’s Armenian residents to stay and “reintegrate” into Azerbaijan.
The United Nations has said it will send a mission to Nagorno-Karabakh this weekend, mainly to assess humanitarian needs, the first time the international organization has had access to the region in about three decades.
France lashed out at Azerbaijan for allowing the mission only after most of its residents had already fled.
Azerbaijan claims soldier shot
With tensions high between the Caucasus neighbors, Azerbaijan said one of its soldiers was killed by an Armenian sniper on their heavily militarized border.
Armenia quickly denied the accusation, saying the claim that its forces opened fire on Azerbaijani positions “does not correspond to reality.”
Firefights along the border between the two Caucasus enemies are common.
But so far the two sides have prevented the recent flare-up over Nagorno-Karabakh from turning into a broader confrontation.
