55 Armenians Still Being Held Captive in Azerbaijan, Yerevan Says – Asbarez.com Asbarez Armenian News
Day: January 5, 2024
At least 198 soldiers and 25 civilians, among them five children, were killed in Artsakh when Azerbaijan launched a massive offensive in September that resulted in the forced exodus of almost all of Artsakh’s Armenian population, a senior Armenian government announced.
Argishti Kyaramyan, the head of Armenia’s Investigative Committee, announced the numbers during an appearance on Armenian Public Television late on Thursday. He said that five other civilians and 15 Artsakh soldiers went missing during the September 19 attack.
Kyaramyan also said that 244 Artsakh residents, among them 76 civilians —10 of whom children — were injured during the attack.
He explained that the findings were the preliminary results of a criminal probe launched by the Investigative Committee on the circumstances the led to and during the forced displacement of Artsakh Armenians.
The massive exodus saw tens of thousands of Artsakh residents attempting to frantically leave their homes.
Kyaramyan said that some 70 people died during the arduous journey from Artsakh to Armenia.
Armenia’s authorities have accused Azerbaijan of ethnic cleansing, a claim supported by leading international human rights advocates, who said that Azerbaijan’s 10-month blockade of Artsakh was genocide.
In October, Armenia’s Human Rights Defender Anahit Manasyan, accused Azerbaijani troops of committing war crimes during the assault.
“There are many bodies, including of civilians, transported from Nagorno-Karabakh to Armenia that carry signs of torture and/or mutilation,” Manasian told reporters at the time.
In his report on Thursday, Kyaramyan said that his investigation documented 20 cases corpse desecration by Azerbaijanis.
The numbers presented by Kyaramyan did not include an earlier announcement last month that at least 218 people died during a fuel depot explosion near Stepanakert on September 25.
Gor Abrahamyan, a spokesperson for Armenia’s Investigative Committee, told Azatutyun.am last month that 21 other Artsakh Armenians, who may have been at the fuel depot at the time of the explosion, were unaccounted for.
The deadly explosion, which destroyed the fuel storage facility outside Stepanakert, occurred as tens of thousands of Artsakh residents were fleeing to Armenia.
Videos posted on social media showed hundreds of cars parked near the depot, waiting to fuel up and head to Armenia. Fuel had been in extremely short supply in Artsakh since Azerbaijan blocked traffic through the Lachin corridor in December 2022.
A senior Armenian law enforcement official said that 55 Armenians are currently being held captive in Azerbaijan, as official Baku claims that 23 remain in its custody.
Argishti Kyaramyan, the Head of the Investigative Committee of Armenia, told Armenia’s Public Television on Thursday that Azerbaijan has confirmed holding 23 Armenians captive but they have evidence on the forced disappearance of another 32 persons after the 2020 war.
“At this moment 23 compatriots confirmed by Azerbaijan are being held there, 17 of whom are persons captured as a result of the 2023 aggression. We have evidence regarding the forced disappearance of 32 persons after the 44-day war, which we have presented to supranational organizations,” Kyaramyan said.
The European Court of Human Rights mandates Baku to take interim measures to regarding 22 of the prisoners, however Azerbaijan has denied the fact that these persons were taken captive.
Last month the leaders of Armenia and Azerbaijan issued a joint statement announcing the exchange of prisoners. Soon after Yerevan returned two Azerbaijani soldiers who we imprisoned for killing a worker at a mine in Syunik. In return, Azerbaijan released 32 Armenian POWs during the exchange that took place on the Armenia-Azerbaijan border.
YEREVAN (Azatutyun.am)—Azerbaijan has renewed its demands for Armenia to open an extraterritorial corridor to Nakhichevan.
A senior aide to Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev claimed that Yerevan has an “obligation” to do so under the terms of the Russian-brokered ceasefire that stopped the 2020 Armenian-Azerbaijani war.
The truce accord commits Armenia to opening rail and road links between Nakhichevan and the rest of Azerbaijan. It says that Russian border guards will “control” the movement of people, vehicles and goods. The transport links would presumably pass through Syunik, the sole Armenian province bordering Iran.
The Armenian government has rejected Baku’s demands, saying that Azerbaijani passengers and cargo cannot be exempt from Armenian border controls. It insists on conventional transport links between the two South Caucasus states.
Iran also strongly opposes the so-called “Zangezur corridor” sought by Aliyev. Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi reaffirmed Tehran’s stance when he met with a visiting Azerbaijani official in October. Aliyev’s top foreign policy adviser, Hikmet Hajiyev, said later in October that the corridor “has lost its attractiveness for us” and that Baku is now planning to “do this with Iran instead.”
But in an interview with Germany’s Berliner Zeitung newspaper published on Thursday, Hajiyev said that the planned construction of a new road as well as a railway connecting Azerbaijan to Nakhichevan via Iran does not mean that Baku has abandoned the idea of the corridor passing through Armenia.
“The route through Armenia is Yerevan’s obligation which they must fulfill,” he said.
Hajiyev confirmed that Baku wants to make sure that Azerbaijani people and cargos traveling to and from Nakhichevan are not checked by Armenian border guards or customs officers.
Aliyev has implicitly threatened to open the corridor by force, prompting stern warnings from Iran. His renewed demands for the corridor follow what Armenian and Azerbaijani officials call major progress made in talks on a bilateral peace treaty.
Armenian opposition leaders dismiss Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan’s regular assurances that the treaty will preclude another war with Azerbaijan. They also say that he is willing to make disproportionate concessions to Baku and get very little in return, a claim denied by Pashinyan and his political allies.
The main purpose of the 2020 ceasefire cited by Hajiyev was to stop fighting in Karabakh and prevent new hostilities. The deal led to the deployment of Russian peacekeepers in Karabakh and gave them control over the Lachin corridor connecting the region to Armenia.
Azerbaijan disrupted commercial and humanitarian traffic through the corridor in December 2022 and set up a checkpoint there in April 2023 in breach of the ceasefire. It went on to launch a military offensive in Karabakh in September 2022, forcing the region’s practically entire population to flee to Armenia.
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