Thousands Of Ethnic Armenians Flee Amid Region Recast

Thousands of ethnic Armenians rushed on Wednesday to flee the breakaway region of Nagorno-Karabakh for Armenia after a lightning military operation by Azerbaijan.

More than 28,000 of the 120,000 Armenians of Karabakh, a region internationally recognised as part of Azerbaijan, have crossed in the border into Armenia, a Country of about 2.8 million.

A military victory by Azerbaijan over the enclave, which was previously beyond Baku’s control, a week ago has triggered one of the biggest movements of people in the South Caucasus since the fall of the Soviet Union.

Many slept in cars or searched for firewood to warm themselves by the side of the road.

“I left everything behind. I don’t know what is in store for me. I have nothing. I don’t want anything,” Vera Petrosyan, a 70-year-old retired teacher, said.

“I would not want anybody to see what I have seen,” she added, reflecting on the shootings, the hunger, turmoil and suffering she witnessed before escaping to Armenia.

Azerbaijan’s 24-hour offensive in Karabakh came amid a blockade imposed on the enclave last December. It is not clear exactly what happened before the Karabakh leadership agreed to a ceasefire.

Azerbaijan says civilians were not harmed.

Armenia and Azerbaijan have fought two wars over the enclave in 30 years with Azerbaijan gaining back swathes of territory in and around Nagorno-Karabakh in a six-week conflict in 2020.

Azerbaijan President Ilham Aliyev said that the rights of Armenians will be respected but said his “iron fist” had consigned the idea of an independent ethnic Armenian Karabakh to history.

REUTERS