The two-day offensive forced Karabakh’s leadership to agree to disband its armed forces greatly outnumbered and outgunned by advancing Azerbaijani troops in the absence of any military support from Armenia. The authorities in Stepanakert said late on Saturday that Karabakh forces have begun withdrawing from their positions and laying down their weapons in line with a ceasefire deal brokered by Russian peacekeepers.
The deal thus paved the way for the restoration of full Azerbaijani control over Karabakh. Few of its 120,000 or so residents seem willing to live under Azerbaijani rule.
The first groups of evacuees included 23 soldiers and civilians wounded during the heavy fighting. They were transported to Armenia by the International Committee of the Red Cross.
Many of the other refugees lived in three villages completely cut off from the rest of Karabakh as a result of the hostilities. They reached the Armenian border through the Lachin corridor in a convoy of vehicles escorted by the peacekeepers.
“We slept in our cars,” one of them told RFE/RL’s Armenian Service. “We are from the village of Mets Shen. Everybody has left it.”
Armenian government representatives were on hand to assess the needs of the first refugees at an aid center opened by them in the border town of Goris. The government said it will provide at least 360 of them with temporary housing.
Karabakh authorities said earlier in the day that all local civilians displaced by the Azerbaijani assault and unwilling to stay in the region will be evacuated to Armenia. They pledged to “provide very soon information about the relocation of other population groups.”
“Our people don’t want to live under Azerbaijani rule: 99.9 percent of them prefer to leave their homeland,” Davit Babayan, a Karabakh official, told the Reuters news agency.
Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian said on Friday that his government is already making contingency plans for a mass exodus of the Karabakh Armenians even if it hopes that they will be able to continue living in their homeland “without fear.” He denied claims that he is reluctant to receive them for domestic political reasons.
“Of course, the Armenian government is working with international partners on the formation of international mechanisms for ensuring the rights and security of the Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh,” Pashinian said on Sunday. “But if these efforts do not produce concrete results, the government will welcome our brothers and sisters of Nagorno-Karabakh to the Republic of Armenia with all care.”