Thousands of people rallied in Stepanakert on Friday in what local officials described as the start of daily protests against Azerbaijan’s seven-month blockade of Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh) and a worsening humanitarian crisis caused by it.
Karabakh’s leadership and major political faction organized the protests one month after Baku further tightened the blockade by banning Russian peacekeepers from shipping limited amounts of food, medicine and fuel to Karabakh. On Tuesday, the Azerbaijani side also blocked the evacuation of seriously ill Karabakh patients to hospitals in Armenia carried out by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) through the Lachin corridor.
The punitive measures aggravated the shortages of essential items in the Armenian-populated region which had already been rationing food, fuel and electricity since last December’s disruption of commercial traffic through the corridor.
The Karabakh premier, Gurgen Nersisian, described the situation there as “critical” when he addressed the sizable crowd in Stepanakert’s central square. He said that Karabakh is running out of basic foodstuffs, life-saving drugs and even fuel reserved for ambulances. Nersisian went on to urge Armenia, Russia and the international community to do more to make Azerbaijan lift the blockade.
“What are you waiting for?” he said. “Do you want us to put the bodies of dead people in this square every day before reacting?”
“Tell me, how should I look in eyes of … a malnourished pregnant woman whose child may be born with defects, mothers whose biggest dream is to find a handful of fruit or candy for their children, people who stand in lines for hours to get a handful of sugar or oil,” Gegham Stepanian, Karabakh’s human rights ombudsman, said for his part.
Thousands of people rallied in Stepanakert on Friday in what local officials described as the start of daily protests against Azerbaijan’s seven-month blockade of Nagorno-Karabakh and a worsening humanitarian crisis caused by it.
Karabakh’s leadership and major political faction organized the protests one month after Baku further tightened the blockade by banning Russian peacekeepers from shipping limited amounts of food, medicine and fuel to Karabakh. On Tuesday, the Azerbaijani side also blocked the evacuation of seriously ill Karabakh patients to hospitals in Armenia carried out by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) through the Lachin corridor.
The punitive measures aggravated the shortages of essential items in the Armenian-populated region which had already been rationing food, fuel and electricity since last December’s disruption of commercial traffic through the corridor.
The Karabakh premier, Gurgen Nersisian, described the situation there as “critical” when he addressed the sizable crowd in Stepanakert’s central square. He said that Karabakh is running out of basic foodstuffs, life-saving drugs and even fuel reserved for ambulances. Nersisian went on to urge Armenia, Russia and the international community to do more to make Azerbaijan lift the blockade.
“What are you waiting for?” he said. “Do you want us to put the bodies of dead people in this square every day before reacting?”
“Tell me, how should I look in eyes of … a malnourished pregnant woman whose child may be born with defects, mothers whose biggest dream is to find a handful of fruit or candy for their children, people who stand in lines for hours to get a handful of sugar or oil,” Gegham Stepanian, Karabakh’s human rights ombudsman, said for his part.
Baku appeared to allow the Red Cross to resume the medical evacuations after ICRC officials met with Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Jeyhun Bayramov on Friday. According to the health authorities in Stepanakert, 11 Karabakh patients were transported to Armenia along with family members accompanying them.
Armenia’s leadership regularly condemns the blockade as a gross violation of a Russian-brokered agreement that stopped the 2020 Armenian-Azerbaijani war. But it has not cancelled peace talks with Azerbaijan in protest. Aliyev is scheduled to hold yet another meeting with Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan in Brussels on Saturday.
Pashinyan’s domestic critics have accused him of washing his hands of Karabakh and its ethnic Armenian population through his recognition of Azerbaijani sovereignty over the region voiced in May. They say that Pashinyan’s far-reaching move, also condemned by Karabakh’s leadership, only emboldened Baku.
Commenting on the Stepanakert protests later on Friday, Pashinyan’s spokeswoman, Nazeli Baghdasarian, said Yerevan “understands” the effort to make consequences of the Azerbaijani blockade “more visible” to the international community. “The Armenian government itself is making efforts in this direction,” she said in written comments to the Armenpress news agency.
Baghdasarian also reiterated Pashinyan’s regular calls for an internationally mediated dialogue between Baku and Stepanakert on protecting “the rights and security of Nagorno-Karabakh’s Armenians.”
Source: Azatutyun.am
