The authorities in Stepanakert suspended classes in schools using natural gas for heating. The measure affected about half of Karabakh’s 19,000 or so schoolchildren, according to them.
“We have 118 schools in Artsakh and … more than 80 of them are heated by woodstoves,” said Hasmik Minasian, the Karabakh education minister. “Less than 40 schools are heated by gas. The problem is that those schools are the biggest ones and it’s their students who suffer the most.”
These schools had already been shut down for three times since Azerbaijani government-backed protesters blocked on December 12 the sole road connecting Karabakh to Armenia. They were most recently reopened on January 30 after a partial restoration of the gas supply.
The flow of gas to Karabakh from a pipeline passing through Azerbaijani-controlled territory was blocked on Monday for the sixth time since the start of the road blockade. Armenia’s electricity supplies to Karabakh were similarly cut off by Baku on January 10, leading to daily power cuts there.
Following the latest supply disruption, Karabakh’s leadership urged the international community to exert stronger pressure on Azerbaijan to end the blockade. In a statement, the foreign ministry in Stepanakert accused Baku of seeking to create “unbearable” living conditions for the Karabakh Armenians and thus force them to leave their homes.
Russia, the United States and the European Union have repeatedly urged Azerbaijan to reopen the Lachin corridor. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken telephoned Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev for that purpose late last month. Aliyev again defended the Azerbaijanis blocking the corridor and demanding that Baku be given access to “illegal” copper mines in Karabakh.