More than 100,000 Karabakh Armenians, the region’s virtually entire remaining population, fled to Armenia in the space of a week. The hundreds of cars, buses and trucks carrying them caused a massive traffic jam on a 50-kilometer road connecting Armenia to Stepanakert. It reportedly took them at least 30 hours to reach the Armenian border.
A spokesman for Armenia’s Investigative Committee, Gor Abrahamian, told RFE/RL’s Armenia Service that 64 refugees died during the arduous journey due to a lack of medicine, medical aid, food and heating.
The Armenian authorities maintain that Karabakh’s depopulation is the result of “ethnic cleansing” carried out by Azerbaijan. Baku denies forcing local residents to flee their homes.
Citing tentative data from Karabakh authorities, Abrahamian also said the 24-hour hostilities, which broke out on September 19, left that more than 200 Karabakh soldiers and nine local civilians, including three children, dead. Thirty other soldiers and 12 civilians remain unaccounted for, he said.
It is not clear if they might be among some 50 people who went missing during the September 25 explosion at a fuel depot outside Stepanakert. At least 220 Karabakh residents died in the powerful blast and a fire sparked by it.
Earlier this month, Armenia’s human rights ombudswoman, Anahit Manasian, accused Azerbaijani troops of committing war crimes during the assault. “There are many bodies, including of civilians, transported from Nagorno-Karabakh to Armenia that carry signs of torture and/or mutilation,” Manasian told reporters.
The Investigative Committee put the number of allegedly tortured Karabakh Armenians at 14.