At least 20 people have died in an explosion at a gas station in Nagorno-Karabakh. Another 290 were taken to hospital with injuries of varying severity. This was announced by the Ministry of Health of the internationally unrecognized Republic of Artsakh in the South Caucasus. As of Tuesday morning, seven people hospitalized had died. In addition, 13 dead people have already been recovered from the scene of the accident. Dozens of injured people were in mortal danger.
According to local media, the Nagorno-Karabakh ombudsman said that night that the majority of those affected were seriously injured. They would have to be transported elsewhere by plane as Nagorno-Karabakh is not able to adequately treat all the injured.
It is still unclear what caused the explosion in the Armenian-majority region, which was attacked and defeated by Azerbaijan last week. High flames could be seen in photos on social networks.
The politician Metakse Akopjan said in the evening that at the time of the accident many people were queuing for gasoline at the camp because they wanted to flee the Azerbaijanis to Armenia in cars. The region’s human rights office appealed to the international community: It is urgently necessary to fly out people, especially seriously injured people, for treatment. “Nagorno-Karabakh’s medical capacity is not sufficient to save people’s lives,” said the statement on the platform X, formerly known as Twitter.
The humanitarian situation in Nagorno-Karabakh, which has long been contested between the two hostile ex-Soviet republics of Armenia and Azerbaijan, is already catastrophic. Azerbaijan has been blocking Armenia’s only access road for months, which is why food, medicine and gasoline are in short supply in the region. Last Tuesday, authoritarian-run Azerbaijan launched a military operation to conquer Nagorno-Karabakh. Just a day later, the defeated Karabakh Armenians surrendered.
According to Armenian sources, more than 200 people were killed during the brief fighting and more than 400 others were injured. The tens of thousands of Armenian civilians in the region now fear being displaced or oppressed by the new Azerbaijani rulers.
Azerbaijan says it is ready to absorb the explosion. Hospitals in several counties have been prepared to care for a large number of patients from Nagorno-Karabakh, Azerbaijani presidential adviser Hikmet Hajiyev said, according to media reports. Mostly ethnic Armenians live in Nagorno-Karabakh. It is questionable whether they really want to place their injured compatriots in the care of the hostile and authoritarian Azerbaijan.