Azerbaijan discovers human remains in liberated Fuzuli

The remains supposedly belonging to two people have been found near the village of Ashagi Seyidahmadli in Fizuli district.

Adalat Hasanov, director of the Association of Forensic Medical Expertise and Pathological Anatomy of the Ministry of Health, made the announcement on May 23, Report informs.

According to him, during excavations carried out in Fuzuli before May 16, the remains allegedly belonging to two people were found near the village of Ashagi Seyidahmadli.

"At the moment, we have the remains of 200-300 people. When sappers, prosecutors, and those involved in repair and construction work find the remains, our staff bring them in. It is not known whether these remains belong to the missing persons or to people who died in a later period. Sometimes rib bones are found, but no DNA can be taken from them because decomposition has taken place. It is not yet possible to say exactly how many people the remains belong to. Remains have also been recovered from the tomb of an unidentified Martyr. They are also included in the general list," Hasanov said.

The first mass grave was discovered in Edilli village of Khojavand District in February and was confirmed to contain the remains of around 15-20 Azerbaijanis.

Armenia and Azerbaijan had been locked in a decades-old armed conflict over the latter’s Karabakh (Garabagh) region. Following the Soviet Union’s dissolution in 1991, Armenia launched full-blown military aggression against Azerbaijan, marking the longest and deadliest war in the South Caucasus region. The bloody war ended with a ceasefire in 1994, which saw Armenia forcibly occupying 20 per cent of Azerbaijan’s internationally recognized territories. Over 30,000 Azerbaijanis were killed, 3,890 went missing, and one million others were expelled from those lands in a brutal ethnic cleansing policy conducted by Armenia.

Post-war searches in the liberated territories of Azerbaijan unearthed the remains of 12 civilians in the Kalbajar district, where the Armenian armed forces committed the Bashlibel mass murder in 1993. In addition, mass graves of the Azerbaijanis were found in the Dashalti village near Shusha city, and the Farrukh height in the Khojaly district.

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).