Refugees say that last week’s attack killed many civilians. Azerbaijan says only soldiers have been targeted.
Armenia says more than a thousand people fleeing Nagorno-Karabakh have entered its territory by Sunday evening.
Nagorno-Karabakh is a predominantly Armenian-populated region located inside Azerbaijan. Azerbaijan launched a major offensive last week that it says has taken control of the entire region.
The control of Nagorno-Karabakh has been disputed and fought for since the late 1980s. About 120,000 Armenians live in the region. Possibly all of them want to run away.
The Nagorno-Karabakh authorities have promised that all willing Armenians will be able to leave for Armenia. Roads leading from the disputed area to Armenia are said to be blocked from traffic.
Those who arrived in Armenia talk about violence
Those who arrived in the border town of Goris to Armenia tell the news agency Reuters about the fierce fire from the Azerbaijani forces.
Escaped from Kochoghot village Petya Grigoryan says Azerbaijani forces fired on his home village.
– Settlements were also fired upon. Two refrigerated trucks were full of bodies, and there is not even a place to bury them, says Grigoryan.
Reuters has not been able to verify information about the dead, but other Armenians who fled Nagorno-Karabakh have also told similar stories.
Azerbaijan claims to protect civilians
According to the refugees, there has also been a shortage of food. Thousands of people have applied to the airport of Stepanakert, the capital of Nagorno-Karabakh.
Last week, Azerbaijan justified the attack by saying that its own people had been attacked first. President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev has claimed that its forces have only attacked military targets and that civilians have been protected.
Several wars have been fought over the control of the area
There was a war over the control of Nagorno-Karabakh, which ended in 1994 with the victory of the Armenians.
In 2020, the second Nagorno-Karabakh war took place, where the Azeris took back large areas from the Armenians. The agreement that ended the crisis was agreed upon 2,000 Russian soldiers about placing them as supervisors of the so-called Laçın Corridor between Nagorno-Karabakh and Armenia.
Since last December, Azerbaijan has closed the corridor so that, according to Armenia, Nagorno-Karabakh has drifted into a humanitarian crisis. Azerbaijan says it has taken steps to prevent smuggling.