“We do not want Azerbaijanis to live in our houses. Let them build their own, “Karen, a 33-year-old resident of Charektar in the Kelbadjar district, told the BBC.
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Shops and restaurants are also falling victim to frustration, and men are cutting down trees in a hurry. Timber trucks are mixed with columns of cars, minibuses and trucks heading across the border. People take away everything that can be taken away: equipment, furniture, refrigerators tied to the roofs of overloaded cars, livestock.
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A burning house after the departure of the Armenians in Karvachar in Nagorno-Karabakh
Photo: Dmitry Lovetsky, CTK / AP
The evacuation of civilians, but also the removal of military equipment is in full swing. According to the tripartite agreement, the Kelbadjar district is to be handed back to Azerbaijan by next Monday.
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The card turned
The local reality is complex. The fire was raging here 27 years ago. Even then, the houses were set on fire by the Armenians, but under completely different circumstances. Then, in the spring of 1993, the territory was occupied by the Armenian army. The local Azerbaijani population fled across the Murovdag ridge in the cold, and for many the miserable journey became fatal. At that time, the Armenians consistently set fire to all abandoned houses not only here, but also in other occupied districts of Azerbaijan. Now the card has turned over.
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President Ilham Aliyev assured Karabakh Armenians that they could live happily under Azerbaijani administration, but no one in Nagorno-Karabakh believes that.
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“We are afraid of children. If we stayed, we would care about our lives every day. We don’t even trust the peacemakers, “says Diana Khachatrjan, 22, who fled Stepanakert with her little daughter and mother-in-law, with whom she now lives in a hotel in Yerevan.
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