Azerbaijan Foreign Ministry honours victims of Balligaya massacre

Azerbaijan’s Foreign Ministry has marked the 34th anniversary of the massacre in Balligaya village in the Goranboy district.

In a post on X, the ministry said Armenian armed forces had carried out a massacre of Azerbaijani civilians in the village.

The ministry said it honoured the memory of those killed in Balligaya and stressed the importance of giving a legal assessment to crimes against humanity and holding those responsible accountable.

The Balligaya massacre, in which 24 Azerbaijani civilians were killed, is being commemorated in Azerbaijan on its anniversary.

The victims included six children, among them a six-month-old infant, and a 93-year-old woman. The bodies of those killed, including children, women and elderly people, were burned. Three minors were orphaned and nine others were seriously injured.

The victims were families displaced from Azerbaijan’s Lachin district following its occupation by Armenian forces in 1992. They had settled in tents in Balligaya, where they sought to continue their lives as herders.

Azerbaijan regards the massacre as part of a broader campaign of ethnic cleansing and genocide against Azerbaijanis during the First Karabakh War, alongside the massacres in Garadaghly, Khojaly and Agdaban.

The Balligaya massacre remains a symbol in Azerbaijan of the violence and suffering experienced by Azerbaijani civilians during the conflict.

By Aghakazim Guliyev