More than 100,000 refugees from Nagorno-Karabakh have already arrived in Armenia, the Armenian Prime Minister’s spokesman said.
According to official data, around 120,000 Armenians lived in that enclave, before the separatist government of Nagorno-Karabakh announced its dissolution and that the unrecognized republic would cease to exist on January 1, 2024.
“There are, at most, a few hundred officials, volunteers, civil protection officers and people with special needs left, who are also preparing to leave,” former Karabakh ombudsman Artak Beglarian said in an online post. social X (formerly Twitter).
The United Nations announced this weekend the sending of a mission team to Nagorno-Karabakh to assess humanitarian needs, despite the fact that that organization has not had access to the region for 30 years.
The separatist government of Nagorno-Karabakh announced Thursday that it will dissolve and that the unrecognized republic will cease to exist on January 1, 2024.
The announcement was made after Azerbaijan carried out a military offensive to regain full control of the separatist region and demanded that Armenian troops in Nagorno-Karabakh lay down their arms and dismantle the separatist government.
Earlier this month, the European Council had warned of the “rapid deterioration” of the humanitarian situation in the region and had called on Azerbaijan and Armenia to safeguard the population and reduce tensions.
The two former Soviet republics of the Caucasus will face two wars, not starting in 1990 and in 2020, under the control of the enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh, a mountainous region whose population is predominantly Armenian and that has been separated from Azerbaijan for more than two years. 30 years.
At the end of the short war in which, in autumn 2020, Azerbaijan recovered territories in this separatist region, Baku and Yerevan signed a ceasefire promoted by Russia.
Tensions intensified this year, when Baku announced on April 23 that it had installed a first checkpoint on the highway at the entrance to the Latchin corridor, the only axis connecting Armenia with the separatist enclave, already under a embargo that caused a shortage of vehicles. essential goods and electricity outages.
Source: TSF
