Geneva, Switzerland
Reuters
Only a few hundred people remain behind in the capital of Nagorno-Karabakh, including the sick, disabled and elderly, an International Committee of the Red Cross official said on Tuesday, describing the empty streets as “surreal”.
Azerbaijani forces took control of the enclave on its territory populated by ethnic Armenians, triggering an exodus of more than 100,000 Armenians.
A view through a car window shows abandoned vehicles in Stepanakert city, known as Khankendi by Azerbaijan, following an Azeri military operation and a further mass exodus of ethnic Armenians from the region of Nagorno-Karabakh, on 2nd October, 2023. PICTURE: Reuters/Aziz Karimov
“The city is now completely deserted,” said ICRC team lead Marco Succi via videolink from the Karabakh capital, known as Stepanakert by Armenia and Khankendi by Azerbaijan.
“The hospitals…are not functioning; the medical personnel left; the water board authorities left; the director of the morgue also left. So this scenario, the scene is quite surreal.”
An ICRC team was now combing the streets with megaphones seeking stranded residents, he told a Geneva press briefing. One whom they found was Susanna, an elderly, bed-ridden cancer patient who was beginning to show signs of Anaemia and malnutrition despite provisions left by her neighbours.
“On a personal note, I must say it’s quite difficult to find the most vulnerable in need, in circumstances like this and finding Susanna all on her own was really an emotional moment,” he said. She was evacuated by ambulance to Armenia.
Asked about an Azerbaijani presence in the capital, he said its police forces were patrolling the streets.
Meanwhile, four ex-leaders of Azerbaijan’s formerly ethnic Armenian-controlled region of Nagorno-Karabakh have been detained by Azerbaijan’s State Security Service and taken to the capital Baku, the state-run Azerbaijani Press Agency reported on Tuesday.
However, three other former leaders of Karabakh have arrived safely in Armenia, the Armenian state news agency Armenpress quoted one of the three as saying.
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Azerbaijan took control of Nagorno-Karabakh after three decades in a lightning military operation on 20th September, and vowed to prosecute the “criminal” separatist leadership, who it said had poisoned the minds of the population.
Almost all the 120,000 or so inhabitants of Karabakh have since fled to Armenia, fearing for their safety. But Azerbaijan has arrested Ruben Vardanyan, a former head of Karabakh’s government, and Levon Mnatsakanyan, former commander of Nagorno-Karabakh’s separatist army, at border checkpoints.
On Tuesday, APA said three former self-styled presidents of Nagorno-Karabakh, Arkady Gukasyan, Bako Sahakyan and Araik Arutyunyan, as well as ex-parliamentary speaker David Ishkhanyan, had been arrested.
However, former state minister Artur Arutyunyan, ex-interior minister Karen Sarkisyan and the former head of Karabakh’s security service, Ararat Melkunyan, all entered Armenia on Tuesday, Artur Arutyunyan said, according to Armenpress.
Karabakh is viewed internationally as part of Azerbaijan but had been run as a breakaway ethnic Armenian statelet since the 1990s following the collapse of the Soviet Union.
