Azerbaijan breathes new life into liberated Lachin More families return to native land

Twenty-three more families left for the city of Lachin today, July 13.

According to Report, a total of 85 people are returning to their ancestral lands.

They were escorted from Gobu Park 3 residential complex in the Garadagh district of Baku. The ceremony was attended by officials of the State Committee for Refugees and IDPs, the Special Representative Office of the President of Azerbaijan in the Lachin district, which is part of the East Zangazur Economic District, and the Lachin District Executive Power.

The families will settle in the houses where they once lived in Lachin, which were restored or repaired on the instructions of the head of state after the end of the occupation.

It should be noted that 93 families (351 people) were already resettled in Lachin.

After Azerbaijan regained control of its territories following a 44-day war with Armenia in 2020, the Azerbaijani government approved the “Great Return” program to enable the return of internally displaced persons (IDPs) to their native lands.

Solving the problems of IDPs is one of the priorities of state policy. In this area, the strategic line defined by the Great Leader Heydar Aliyev and continued by President Ilham Aliyev is aimed at improving their living conditions, ensuring their social protection and employment. The voluntary, safe, and dignified return of IDPs to their homeland is an important task.

Azerbaijan earlier made public the number of IDPs to be relocated to liberated Karabakh and east Zangazur by late 2023.

Deputy Chairman of the Azerbaijani State Committee for Refugees and IDPs Fuad Huseynov said earlier that the country plans to return to their native homes in the Karabakh and East Zangazur economic regions about 2,000 families of IDPs by late 2023, that is about 10,000 people.

"In addition, it is planned to return 267 families to the city of Fuzuli and about 100 families to the village of Agali in the Zangilan district," Huseynov added.

According to him, 700 families are planning to return to the city of Lachin, and 400 families to the villages of Zabukh and Sus in the Lachin district.