“Many people are hungry, exhausted and in need of immediate assistance. International help is urgently needed,” Filippo Grandi, head of the UN refugee agency UNHCR, said late on Friday.
People in Nagorno-Karabakh leave their homes and cram into a truck to flee to Armenia. Photo: Reuters
The Italian government said Armenia had asked the European Union for temporary housing and medical supplies to help it cope with the refugees. According to media reports, thousands of people with their belongings were crammed into cars, trucks and tractors, stuck on the mountain highway leading to Armenia.
Siranush Sargsyan, a local journalist, said many people needed urgent medical attention. “As you can see, we are still stuck on the road. This migration is really unbearable because we have spent 16 hours on this road… It looks like we will not reach the border in the next 24 hours.”
After a lightning offensive, Azerbaijani forces defeated the separatists and took control of all of Nagorno-Karabakh. Most of Karabakh’s 120,000 Armenians have begun a mass exodus to Armenia, saying they fear persecution and ethnic cleansing despite Azerbaijan’s promises of safety.
Thousands of Nagorno-Karabakh people, including many young children, are believed to be stranded on the road during their journey to the Armenian border. Photo: Reuters
Nagorno-Karabakh is internationally recognised as part of Azerbaijan but is populated mainly by Christian Armenians, who founded the self-proclaimed Republic of Artsakh three decades ago after a bloody ethnic conflict as the Soviet Union collapsed.
One refugee vowed that she would eventually return home. “ The world should not believe that we were willing to leave Artsakh,” she said. “We fought to the end, with our blood and lives, to defend our country.”
Azerbaijan said one of its servicemen was killed by sniper fire from Armenian forces in the Kalbajar border region, but Armenia denied the allegation.
Bui Huy (according to Reuters)
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