As of 6 p.m. local time, 53,629 people making up nearly half of Karabakh’s estimated population have crossed into Armenia through the Lachin corridor, Nazeli Baghdasarian, a spokeswoman for Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian, told reporters.
The road connecting Karabakh to Armenia remained jammed by hundreds of cars, buses and trucks carrying Karabakh Armenians unwilling to live under Azerbaijani rule.
“Poor people are left without any help as they hit the road to come here,” complained one of the refugees. “There is no escort, nothing. Neither the Russians nor anybody else gives directions.”
The middle-aged woman spoke to RFE/RL’s Armenian Service in the border town of Goris where an aid center set up by the Armenian government continued to offer them medicine, food, warm clothing and temporary housing. Local government officials working there were again joined by many volunteers from private charities also helping the refugees.
Baghdasarian said earlier in the day that only about 8,000 refugees have accepted accommodation provided by the government in hotels, resorts and public buildings across Armenia. Most of them have been resettled in the Kotayk and Ararat provinces north and south of Yerevan.
The majority of the arriving refugees kept telling government officials and aid workers that they will live with relatives or have other places of residence in Armenia.
Visiting Goris on Tuesday, Samantha Power, the head of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), said Washington will provide $11.5 million in humanitarian assistance to the refugees. The European Union announced, for its part, a relief aid package worth 5 million euros ($5.1 million) for both the forcibly displaced Karabakh Armenians and people remaining in Karabakh. Similar sums were separately promised by France and Germany.
"I have decided to significantly increase our humanitarian aid once again and to increase our additional funding for the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) from 2 to 5 million euros ($5.28 million)," German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock said on Wednesday.
The ICRC is the only international humanitarian organization allowed by Azerbaijan to operate in Karabakh. Power said Baku must also give other aid agencies “full and unimpeded access to the Lachin corridor and into villages and towns of Nagorno-Karabakh.”
Washington also called for the dispatch of an international monitoring mission to Nagorno-Karabakh. Baerbock similarly urged Baku to allow international observers to enter the war-torn region.