The ban took effect on Wednesday three weeks after Baku blocked emergency supplies of food, medicine and other essential items to Karabakh through the sole road connecting the region to Armenia. They had been carried out, in limited quantities, by Russian peacekeepers since the disruption of commercial traffic through the corridor last December.
Karabakh restaurants are no longer allowed to serve meals for groups of more than 50 people, and post-funeral receptions held there can be attended by up to 30 persons. The restrictions are designed to further cut the consumption of imported food which is now running out.
“There is no sugar, soap and washing powder in shops, and the price of sweets has increased fivefold,” Silva Khachatrian, a Stepanakert resident, told RFE/RL’s Armenian Service. The prices of sunflower oil and drugs have at least doubled since June 15, she said.
Khachatrian also complained about similar surges in the cost of fruit and vegetables grown in Karabakh. She blamed them on “shameless” traders buying the agricultural produce from local farmers.
The Karabakh premier, Gurgen Nersisian, on Tuesday also put the blame on the farmers, saying that they are trying to cash in on the crisis. The authorities will “try to settle the problem with the producers,” he said.
Nersisian also announced that Karabakh families having underage members will receive sugar and cooking oil. The authorities in Stepanakert have rationed these and other basic foodstuffs since February.
Azerbaijan stopped relief supplies to Karabakh on June 15 following a shootout near an Azerbaijani checkpoint controversially set up in April by a bridge over the Hakari river, the starting point of the Lachin corridor.
Armenia said its border guards opened fire to stop Azerbaijani servicemen manning the checkpoint from placing an Azerbaijani flag on adjacent Armenian territory. Azerbaijan insisted, however, that they did not cross into Armenia.
Russia and the European Union have urged Baku to lift the blockade regarded by the Armenian side as a gross violation of a Russian-brokered agreement that stopped the 2020 Armenian-Azerbaijani war. The EU said on June 23 that the blockade “directly threatens the livelihoods of the local population and raises serious fears of a potential humanitarian crisis.”