At least eleven people, including civilians and police officers, have so far died in the fighting, according to the BBC.
According to spokespersons for the breakaway region, Azerbaijan’s military has “violated the ceasefire along the entire contact line by firing missiles”.
– It is partly about the fact that communication into Nagorno-Karabakh has been cut off. The few journalists who are there report on shelling against civilian areas and images have abounded of bombings against the Nagorno-Karabakh area, says Rasmus Canbäck, journalist at Blankspot.
Tuesday’s development is a clear signal for the increasingly tense situation between the neighboring countries of Armenia and Azerbaijan.
The countries have previously fought over the region, first in the early 1990s in connection with the fall of the Soviet Union, and again in 2020. Since December, Azerbaijan has successfully blocked the only transport route from the region to Armenia.
– It is a tense situation and the population inside Nagorno-Karabakh has not had contact with the outside world for a long time. They have warned from there of a famine because no food comes in at all and what they grow there is not enough. There are more dimensions to this besides the military violence, says TV4’s foreign commentator Lisa Grenfors.
Systematic bombardment
Baku now accuses Armenian forces of carrying out systematic bombardment of its defense positions and believes that this is why it has now launched an “anti-terrorist operation”.
– To disarm and secure the withdrawal of formations of the Armed Forces of Armenia from our territories, says Zakir Hasanov, Minister of Defense, Azerbaijan.
The Armenian Ministry of Defense responded in a letter published shortly after, reports AFP.
“On September 19, Azerbaijan unleashed another large-scale aggression against the people of Nagorno-Karabakh, with the aim of completing its policy of ethnic cleansing,” the ministry writes.
Increased concern
During the six-week conflict in 2020, Azerbaijan recaptured territories around Karabakh held by Armenia since 1994.
– Armenia has called for a special Security Council meeting with the Armenian Security Council and I think they are calling around to allies in the world, especially France. It is hoped that the issue will be raised with the Security Council. This is a big issue that Armenia is trying to pursue and has been doing for a long time, says Rasmus Canbäck.
And the fragile truce that prevailed between the countries has been maintained, among other things, by the presence of Russian forces in the area. When Russia’s focus is now increasingly on the war in Ukraine, there is growing concern that the conflict will once again flare up into a full-scale war.
– Among other things, you have seen large troops, build-ups and you have seen that you have imported weapons from Israel – a larger quantity than is usually done, says Rasmus Canbäck.