UN Mission Arrives in Nagorno Karabakh for First Time in 30 Years

AFP

A UN mission in Nagorno Karabakh, for the first time in 30 years

A UN mission arrived in Nagorno Karabakh on Sunday, for the first time in three decades, Azerbaijan announced at a time when the majority of the local Armenian population left the enclave after its recapture by Baku. word of the Azerbaijani presidency told AFP that the UN mission had arrived “Sunday morning” with the main task of assessing the humanitarian needs on the spot. Earlier, the UN announced that it had received the green light for sending a mission to the territory this weekend. On Saturday, France deplored that Azerbaijan only agreed to this mission after the massive exodus of Armenians. The Armenian separatists, who controlled Nagorno Karabakh for three decades, capitulated and agreed to lay down their arms last week, after a lightning offensive by Azerbaijan. In total, nearly 600 deaths were reported in the wake of this offensive. The fighting itself killed around 200 soldiers in each camp. Since then, the enclave has been almost entirely deserted by its inhabitants, with more than 100,000 refugees — of the 120,000 residents officially living there — having fled to Armenia out of fear. of reprisals from Azerbaijan.”There are still a few hundred civil servants, emergency workers and people with special needs, who are also preparing to leave”, wrote on X (ex-Twitter) the former human rights ombudsman Nagorny Karabakh, Artak Beglarian.In their flight on the only mountainous road linking the territory to Armenia, at least 170 people also died in the explosion on Monday of a fuel depot, which also left 349 injured, most suffering from serious burns. More than 45,516 people are currently in state-provided accommodation, according to the Armenian government. – Day of prayer – Armenia, with a Christian majority and facing a massive influx of refugees, raising fears a serious humanitarian crisis, for its part celebrated on Sunday a day of prayer for Nagorno Karabakh. Church bells resonated in the country and the head of the Church, Garegin II, celebrated a mass in the main Armenian cathedral near of Yerevan. The chaotic flow has revived accusations of “ethnic cleansing” and Yerevan has launched a new appeal to the International Court of Justice (ICJ), demanding urgent measures to protect the inhabitants of the enclave. Azerbaijan refutes any accusation of “ethnic cleansing” and assures residents of the enclave that they are free to leave or stay, Hikmet Hajiyev, an advisor to the Azerbaijani president, told AFP on Saturday. Mr. Hajiyev affirmed that a “reintegration” program is being developed for those who would like to stay and that the Azerbaijani army has “not entered” Stepanakert, the “capital” of the separatist enclave still inaccessible to the press. “We deliberately refrain from putting up Azerbaijani flags, we know that there are still civilians and we know their fears,” Hikmet Hajiyev said. Azerbaijani security forces are deployed in Nagorno Karabakh to protect certain sites, particularly religious ones, according to Baku, and negotiations between Azerbaijani officials and those responsible for the enclave are planned for Monday in Stepanakert. Negotiations between Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliev and the Prime Armenian Minister Nikol Pashinian are also scheduled for next Thursday in Granada, Spain. The separatist enclave decreed on Thursday the spectacular dissolution of its institutions on January 1, 2024, a historic announcement marking the end of the existence of the self-proclaimed republic of Nagorno Karabakh. The refugees’ fears are fueled, according to Yerevan, by a series of “illegal arrests”, although the Azerbaijani authorities have committed to allowing rebels to leave if they surrender their weapons. Several officials from the enclave have been placed in detention , accused of “terrorism” and other crimes, like the former head of foreign affairs David Babaian, arrested Friday. While the reception of refugees is being organized with difficulty, the opponents of Mr. Pachinian, accused of passivity and let go by Moscow, gave their voice again on Saturday in the streets. Yerevan blames Russia, its traditional ally supposed to guarantee full respect of the ceasefire since 2020 and which did not intervene .The separatist enclave of Nagorno Karabakh, supported militarily and economically by Yerevan, opposed Baku for more than three decades, notably during two wars between 1988 and 1994 and in the fall of 2020.eg-im-rco/ lch