At around 11:30 p.m. local time, seven high explosions were heard in Stepanakert. Immediately after the salvo, alarm sirens sounded for minutes to urge the population to look for the bomb shelters. Afterwards it became quiet again in the city shrouded in total darkness.
The bombings came despite a ceasefire between Armenia and Azerbaijan that was supposed to start at noon on Saturday. However, shortly after the Russian-brokered truce came into effect, both sides accused each other of renewed violence. Nevertheless, it remained unusually quiet all day in Stepanakert.
Stepanakert has been under heavy fire in the past two weeks. Nagorno-Karabakh officially belongs to Azerbaijan, but in the 1990s the region, mainly inhabited by Armenians, broke off. Since then there have been more conflicts, but violence has flared up again in the past two weeks.
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