On October 8, Azerbaijani Armed Forces launched two intentional assaults on Holy Savior Cathedral in the town of Shushi, which is the recognizable cultural and religious symbol of Artsakh. People in the shelter of the cathedral became a target as well.
The Cultural House in Shushi built in 2017 was another target of indiscriminate attacks. Now only the walls stand from the beautiful art centre to show the continuous practice of Azerbaijan to destroy the Armenian cultural heritage of Artsakh.
From September 27, Azerbaijan wages an aggressive war against the Republic of Artsakh targeting and shelling civilian population and densely populated civilian areas. Villages, towns and the capital Stepanakert have been intensively attacked resulting in more than 30 deaths and hundreds of injured. Residential buildings, schools, other civilian infrastructure destroyed. Life and health of children, women and the entire population of Artsakh are still under an imminent and real threat.
It is terrorism and war crime committed by Azerbaijan.
Azerbaijan conducted targeted attacks on civilian journalists engaged in covering the areas of armed conflict. Attacks resulted in 7 injuries and the death of the person accompanying the journalists’ group.
“In many cases, the strikes were deliberate. Azerbaijan used rocket systems, missiles, striking drones, including suicide drones, artillery. For all those crimes including in some cases, in Hadrut, there are direct gun shootings to the civilian population. And we have already at least 4 civilians killed by this way”, says Artak Beglaryan, the Human Rights Defender of the Republic of Artsakh.
Since the launch of the large-scale aggression against Artsakh, Azerbaijan has been repeatedly using forbidden by international law cluster munitions in densely populated civilian areas as well.
The Artsakh Republic already has 6700 private immovable property totally damaged from the strikes: houses, apartments, shops. 640 private movable property was destroyed or seriously damaged. 1110 infrastructure was damaged, among those there are electricity and telecommunication stations, gas and water pipelines, food storages, roads, bridges, factories, services, schools, kindergartens, cathedrals, cultural centers, etc.
During Azerbaijani aggression approximately 90.000 citizens of the Republic of Artsakh have fled their homes to shelter at safer places. Some of them have moved to other settlements of the country and others moved to the Republic of Armenia. The overwhelming majority of the current population has to live at shelters to avoid Azerbaijani indiscriminate and targeted strikes, and nobody knows where and when is safe to stay.
There are multiple shreds of evidence that confirms the deployment of terrorist groups, mercenaries who are fighting Defense Army of Artsakh and are seriously threatening the existence of Armenians. Moreover, the same evidence discloses the key role of Turkey in this matter.
Aggressive military air and artillery shelling against the peaceful population of Artsakh launched by Azerbaijan on September 27 is accompanied with massive state-supported hate speech towards ethnic Armenians. All these factors clearly demonstrate the policy by Azerbaijan and Turkey of ethnic cleansing and terror-inspiring means against the Armenian civilian population.
It is obvious that the international community, especially Human Rights Organizations do not react to the violence in Artsakh committed by the Azerbaijani Armed Forces. They seem to be blind.
“During the first days of the war, the Human Rights Ombudsman of Artsakh started a campaign called “Don’t be blind”, which is directed to the international community showing what’s happening here, what kind of crimes and deprivations are occurring in the Republic of Artsakh and calling them stop talking, start acting and not to be blind. “The meaning of our campaign was to urge them to act immediately, to act directly and to act addressably”, he states.
Many people both in Artsakh and Armenia and internationally have joined this campaign. Current and former Human Rights Defenders of Armenia and Artsakh, Arman Tatoyan, Larisa Alaverdyan and Ruben Melikyan called upon the international community not to be blind towards all the violations of Human Rights in Artsakh.
Artak Beglaryan notes that the reaction by the international community and international Human Rights community is not sufficient. International Human Rights community either turns a blind eye to the reality and to the crimes happening there or works very slowly only in terms of recording the crimes on the ground and in terms of reacting beyond statements and beyond talks.
The atrocities unleashed by Azerbaijan in Artsakh; the violations of the rights of Armenians continue. It is time to react unless it is too late.
Source - AntiFake.am