According to sources from an internationally unrecognized republic, up to half of the local population was forced to leave amid bombing and fighting.
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“According to our preliminary estimates, about 50 percent of Karabakh’s population has relocated, 90 percent of whom are women and children,” Artak Beglaryan, the Karabakh ombudsman, told the media. According to him, about 70,000 to 75,000 people had to move to safe places in the Republic of Arcach (the Armenian name of Nagorno-Karabakh).
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Photo: Novinky.cz s Mapy.cz
The Russian agency RIA Novosti pointed out that there are many disabled people and sick people among the refugees who leave directly from hospitals. “We are afraid of bombing. Only men remain in the city, “she quoted a resident of Stepanakert, the administrative center of the Armenian separatist enclave in Azerbaijan. The villages along the front line are empty, according to the agency’s rapporteur.
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Amnesty International experts have confirmed in recent days that Azerbaijan used banned cluster bombs in the bombing of Stepanakert.
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“The use of cluster bombs is prohibited under international law. The use of cluster bombs to attack civilian areas is extremely dangerous and will only lead to further deaths and injuries, “said Denis Krivoshev, Amnesty International’s Deputy Director for Europe and Central Asia.
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It is estimated that five to 20 percent of cluster bombs do not explode and become a threat to the civilian population.
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Crater after the Azerbaijani shelling of Stepanakert, the capital of Nagorno-Karabakh
Photo: Dmitri Lovetsky, CTK / AP
