Azerbaijan hands over about 700 Armenians to Yerevan after two Karabakh wars

Azerbaijan handed over 681 Armenians to Yerevan after the first and second Karabakh wars.

The head of the working group of the State Commission on Prisoners of War, Hostages and Missing Citizens, Ismail Akhundov, made the statement at the "Forensic Archaeology and Forensic Anthropology: Humanitarian applications" international conference, APA reports.

More than 500 people were transferred to the opposing side during the First Karabakh War and 181 people have been transferred since the Second Karabakh War, he said.

Released Azerbaijani hostages

Akhundov also revealed the number of Azerbaijanis released from Armenian captivity.

"Some 1,480 Azerbaijanis were released from [Armenian] captivity during the first Karabakh war and 26 during the Second Karabakh War," he said.

Meanwhile, he expressed the hope that Yerevan will brief Baku about the fate of missing Azerbaijanis and the places of their burial.

"Although the liberation of the territories of Azerbaijan in the Karabakh war in 2020 gave rise to great hopes for clarifying the fate of persons missing in the Karabakh war, the main obstacle is the contamination of the territories with mines and unexploded ordnance," he said.

Akhundov added that "the mines installed in the liberated territories do not allow for field work, as well as excavations and exhumation at already known burial sites, prolong the suffering of the families of the missing. We hope that the Azerbaijani side will be provided with accurate maps of the minefields and information about the fate of the missing persons and their burial places. The discovery and identification of the remains of missing persons belonging to both sides strongly depend on the attitude to the issue in the format I spoke about".

During the First Karabakh War, the Armenian armed groups and the Armenian armed forces grossly violated the norms and principles of international humanitarian law, including the requirements of Article 17 of the Geneva Convention "On the improvement of the condition of the wounded and sick in active armies".

Missing Azerbaijanis

In early April 2023, the abovementioned commission published the list of mass grave sites in the direction of Fuzuli Distric’s Yukhari Seyidahmadli, Ashagi Seyidahmadli, Malikjanli, Yukhari Veysalli villages, in the direction of Jabrayil Dsitrict’s Darzili, Chaytumas villages, near Kalbajar District’s Baghirli, Yanshag, Qamishlig, Aghdaban villages, in the area called Buzlug mountain, on the height of Murovdag, in the territory of the city of Kalbajar, in Aghdam District’s Sugovushan, Sarijali, Garagashli, Gulluja villages, Gubadli District’s Goyyal village, in the Shusha city cemetery, Khojavand District’s Edilli village, and in the territory of Khankandi city, Khojaly and Khojavand districts, as well as the former Aghdara district, which are currently under the temporary control of Russian peacekeepers.

Armenia, which promised to cooperate with Azerbaijan to determine the fate of about 4,000 missing Azerbaijanis, still fails to return the bodies of servicemen, who went missing during the first Karabakh war in the early 1990s.

Armenia has yet to provide information about the mass graves of 3,890 missing Azerbaijani citizens (including 71 children, 267 women and 326 elderly people).