Stories from Karabakh: A woman fled only in a shirt, a war veteran will die

According to the Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry, at least nine people were killed and others injured in a rocket attack by Armenian forces on a residential area of ​​the city. Although Armenia has denied reports of violations, the houses and streets covered with shattered glass are denied by Azerbaijan.

Sixty-year-old Nushabe Haider, who found herself on the street only in a scarf, slippers and a sweater casually slung over her nightwear, also knows about it. “I left home in what I was wearing. I barely ran away. It was terrible,” he describes to BBC news server a woman who apparently still hadn’t recovered from the shock she had suffered.

“Armenians should leave peacefully. We don’t want a war, we just want to liberate our homeland,” he says. He thus confirms that most Azerbaijanis consider Nagorno-Karabakh to be their occupied territory.

The international community takes the same position. The Karabakh Armenians have declared an independent state here, but no one has officially recognized it.

Historical injustice

Twenty-two-year-old Ihtijar Rasulov catches the eye at first sight with his shaved head, which contradicts the overall appearance of a boyband member. Although Nagorno-Karabakh has never seen it with his own eyes, he says that it is in the fight to lay down his life for him.

“I want to fight for my nation and homeland,” Ihtijar told the BBC. “My father, my mother and my grandfather used to live in that area. And my brother is fighting,” he added, adding that he had recently joined the army.

Today, the young man lives in a dilapidated apartment complex full of families who fled Nagorno-Karabakh in the early 1990s. He grew up in an environment where historical injustices were commemorated and hostility to Armenia literally became part of his DNA.

“Karabakh is Azerbaijan. When the Armenians came there, they did a lot of harm to my people. Of course I was not there because I was not born at the time, but I heard what it was like,” says Ihtijar.

Homecoming

His neighbor Asef Haqverdiev is one of the veterans of the Nagorno-Karabakh war. “I’m 51 – and I’m ready to die for my country,” he says. “I also sent my son into the war. Even if my whole family died, if we all had to die, we would not give up an inch of our country,” he warns.

The same opinion is held by old woman Ajbeniz Djaffaravová from Terter, which is located near Nagorno-Karabakh. Despite numerous attacks, she refuses to leave the city and, together with her relatives, including her six-month-old grandson Fariz, has taken refuge in an underground shelter.

“We have been waiting for this for 28 years. I am excited that it has happened. My son and granddaughter are fighting in the front line, we remain in hiding where we are waiting for our victory. Then we will finally return to our country, says Ajbeniz with a smile on rtech.

An unwanted truce

The main question therefore remains whether the officially declared ceasefire, mediated by Russia, can work at all. Few believe it, and many Azerbaijanis do not even want it, the BBC news server warned.

It was at the time when the armistice came into force that the house of Asota Agajanjana was hit by a long-range missile. While the living room floor is still littered with pieces of glass and plaster even after a few days, the bathroom and kitchen have been literally wiped off the earth’s surface.

“Armenians and Azerbaijanis will never live together in peace,” concludes the man, whose life was saved only by chance. At the time of the impact of the rocket, fragments of which he later found in the garden, he was in the cellar with his sons.

War of Nagorno-Karabakh erupted in February 1988 in the enclave of the same name in southwestern Azerbaijan between Armenia and Azerbaijan. The protracted conflict resulted in ethnic cleansing on both sides. Although an armistice has been signed since 12 May 1994, the two sides continued to attack each other to a limited extent militarily in the following years.

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