The Armenian ambassador to the EU has rejected claims that Nagorno-Karabakh Armenians have no reason to fear the Azerbaijani occupation.
Contradicting statements by Azerbaijani officials, Ambassador Tigrayan Balayan told Brussels Signal that Azerbaijani forces are committing “mass atrocities and war crimes”.
Claims of a relatively peaceful takeover were “complete non-sense and blatant lie[s]”, Ambassador Balayan said.
Azerbaijan last week launched a large-scale attack on Nagorno Karabakh, which forced the authorities to agree to a ceasefire proposed by Russian peacekeepers.
“Nagorno-Karabakh has at least 300 deaths, including 10 civilians (5 children), more than 400 injured, including 40 civilians (13 children),” the Ambassador said, presenting the figures.
The Armenian ambassador said the civilian casualties were deliberate. The “genocidal Aliyev regime resorted to use of force and started a campaign of ethnic cleansing, with exactly the same pattern as in Srebrenica,” he said.
“During the aggression, mass atrocities and war crimes were committed even against civilians, children, and women. Azerbaijan was deliberately targeting civilian infrastructure, its soldiers murdering civilians in cold blood,” Balayan added.
He also said that Azerbaijani telegram channels were “posting photos of missing Armenian women and children from Nagorno-Karabakh, and calling for violence, rape, beheadings and promising rewards for them and for videos with atrocities.”