Global Courant
KORNIDZOR, Armenia — More than three-quarters of the 120,000 residents of the ethnic Armenian breakaway region of Nagorno-Karabakh had fled Friday afternoon after its defeat by Azerbaijan, a faster-than-expected mass exodus that appeared likely to be total.
Cars, buses and tractors carrying refugees lined highways on the fifth day of the exodus, bringing a sudden and decisive end to one of the most intractable of the former Soviet Union’s decades-old ethnic “frozen conflicts.”
The Armenian government said nearly 93,000 people have now crossed into the territory, Russia’s RIA news agency reported. Earlier, a U.N. refugee agency official said the total could be as high as 120,000, matching estimates for the entire population of the enclave, a part of Azerbaijan that broke away in the 1990s.
Armenia, which supported the separatists for decades but ultimately proved powerless to protect them, sent city buses from the capital Yerevan to help people get out. Volunteers greeted the purple buses on the road near the border, pushing boxes of bread and bottles of water through the windows.
Azerbaijan says it will respect the rights of ethnic Armenians who choose to stay, but that it has forever destroyed the concept of a breakaway state.
It said on Friday it would allow a UN team to visit the region within days, a major demand from Western countries.
REFUGEES
The Petrosyan family – Geghetsik, 65, husband Albert, 71, and their 30-year-old son Agasi, who uses a wheelchair and has severe learning difficulties – spent a night in Goris on the Armenian side of the border after leaving their home to to escape . They strapped Agasi’s wheelchair to the roof of their car as they set out again to look for a place to live.
“We built our house so that everything would be good for him,” Geghetsik said through tears, speaking of the accommodations they need because of their son’s disability. “I won’t be able to find a place that will be good for him now.”
Azerbaijani forces quickly retook Karabakh last week after sealing it off since early this year. Residents say they suffered hunger and disease during the effective siege.
“This is a situation where they have lived under nine months of blockade,” Kavita Belani, UNHCR representative in Armenia, told a UN news conference via video link. “And when they come in, they’re full of fear, they’re scared, they’re scared and they want answers.”
She said agencies were prepared to handle 120,000 people after having to reject plans that expected 90,000.
Nearly a third of refugees are children, including many separated from their families.
“The situation often involves families arriving with children so weak that they have fainted in their parents’ arms,” said Hicham Diab, representative of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies.
BODIES
Carlos Morazzani, operations manager of the International Committee of the Red Cross, said it had transferred about 200 bodies from Karabakh – victims of a massive explosion at a fuel depot the night the exodus began, but also of recent fighting.
The Red Cross will focus on helping those left behind, with basic food and hygiene products, he said.
“We planned for the evacuation to be a longer process,” Morazzani said. “The evacuations this week happened very quickly, a lot of people, but that left a lot of people stranded.”
Azerbaijan’s victory reverses a humiliating defeat the country suffered when the Soviet Union collapsed. About a million Azeris lost their homes when Karabakh separatists captured much of the territory around their breakaway region.
Azerbaijan retook much of that land in a brief war in 2020, but the separatists still controlled much of Karabakh itself thanks to a peace deal brokered by Moscow and guaranteed by Russian peacekeepers.
Armenia has blamed Russia for failing to ensure the security of the breakaway region. Moscow denies blame.
Western countries have denounced Azerbaijan’s lightning attack on Karabakh, while calling on Baku to keep promises to protect civilians.
“Azerbaijan bears the responsibility to guarantee the rights and security of the Karabakh Armenians, including their right to live in dignity in their homes without harassment and discrimination, as well as the right of return for the displaced,” a spokesperson for the European Union in a speech. rack.
“It is essential that a UN mission can access the area within the coming days.”
Azerbaijan said on Friday it had detained Levon Mnatsakanyan, a former military commander of the separatist forces from 2015-2018, at a border checkpoint.
It has also arrested a former head of Karabakh’s government, Ruben Vardanyan, accusing him of financing terrorism. REUTERS
