They no longer see a future for themselves in their homeland and are leaving Nagorno-Karabakh in their tens of thousands: The Foreign Office expects that soon there will no longer be any Armenians living in the conflict region.
After Azerbaijan recaptured the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict region in the South Caucasus, almost 85,000 people have sought refuge in Armenia. Government spokeswoman Naseli Bagdassarian said in the Armenian capital Yerevan that these were people who had been forced to leave their homeland.
Once 120,000 Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh
According to official, unverifiable information, 120,000 Karabakh Armenians previously lived in the region. The authoritarian government of Azerbaijan reconquered the region, which had been fought over for decades, in a military offensive last week.
The leadership of the internationally unrecognized Republic of Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh) then capitulated and this week also sealed its self-dissolution on January 1, 2024.
“No reason to run away”
The Azerbaijani government and Russia, which is considered Armenia’s protecting power, had declared that there was no reason to flee. However, Karabakh Armenians fear persecution and violence from Azerbaijan.
In Yerevan, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan accused the neighboring country of “ethnic cleansing” at a government meeting. “Analysis of the situation shows that there will be no Armenians left in Nagorno-Karabakh in the coming days,” Pashinyan said.
“No more future and security”
From the perspective of the Foreign Office, Nagorno-Karabakh could soon be almost deserted. Azerbaijan has “put on the military map and created facts despite ongoing peace negotiations with Armenia,” said Robin Wagener (Greens), coordinator for cooperation with the South Caucasus, to the digital media house Table Media. “Many residents of Nagorno-Karabakh no longer see a future of security for themselves in their homeland,” said Wagener.
Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock is working with Germany’s partners to ensure that observers can finally be sent to Nagorno-Karabakh, said Wagener. It is good that the government of Azerbaijan has signaled that UN employees will soon be able to report on the situation on site. Azerbaijan is an important energy corridor towards Europe. “At the same time, we have to make it clear to Baku that further military escalation would not be without consequences,” emphasized Wagener.
For decades Conflicts
In the past there had been repeated conflicts between the Christian Karabakh Armenians and the Muslim Azerbaijanis. According to the Armenian government, a humanitarian center for the refugees has been set up near Nagorno-Karabakh.
Nagorno-Karabakh’s human rights commissioner, Gegam Stepanyan, said that at least 200 people were killed and around 400 injured in the fighting. The Azerbaijani side also reported losses in its own ranks.
The region has been disputed for decades between the feuding ex-Soviet republics of Azerbaijan and Armenia. In the 1990s, Nagorno-Karabakh, which lies on Azerbaijani territory but is predominantly inhabited by Armenians, was able to break away from Baku in a bloody civil war with the help of Yerevan. Azerbaijan, which is militarily armed thanks to oil and gas revenues, managed to recapture large parts of Nagorno-Karabakh in 2020. A ceasefire brokered by Russia proved fragile.