Return to Karabakh: 15 families get keys to new Shushakend homes PHOTO / Updated

The first group of former internally displaced persons has arrived in the village of Shushakend in Azerbaijan’s Khojaly district.

According to the Public Relations Department of the Service for Reconstruction, Construction, and Management in Khankendi, Aghdara, and Khojaly districts, 59 former displaced residents returned to Shushakend in the initial phase of the resettlement, Caliber.Az reports.

Keys to new apartments were handed over to all 15 families. The village has been fully equipped with essential infrastructure to ensure a safe and comfortable life, including modern roads, uninterrupted electricity, natural gas, and clean drinking water.

Facilities necessary for the functioning of social services have also been established.

Speaking at the ceremony, Sabukhi Gahramanov, Deputy Special Representative of the Azerbaijani President for Khankendi, Aghdara, and Khojaly, congratulated the residents on their return and wished them a peaceful and prosperous life in their ancestral homeland.

09:41

The process of the Great Return to Azerbaijan’s liberated territories is gaining momentum, with another group of former internally displaced persons moving back to their native lands.

At this stage, 25 families comprising 98 people have been resettled in the Khojavand and Khojaly districts. Of these, 10 families (39 people) returned to the village of Girmizibazar in Khojavand, while 15 families (59 people) were relocated to the village of Shushakend in Khojaly, Caliber.Az reports via local media.

“We lived in a dormitory for many years, but, thankfully, we have lived to see the day when we return to our own home,” said former internally displaced person Nazanin Huseynova from the village of Girmizibazar in the Khojavand district, on the eve of returning to her homeland.

According to her, she left her native land 32 years ago:

“May Allah rest the souls of our martyrs, who gave us these lands, and grant health to our veterans. May the Almighty protect our President.

We lived in a dormitory for many years, but, thank God, we have lived to see the day when we are returning to our own home, to our native village. When we left the village, I was 40 years old, and now I am 72. We are returning with great enthusiasm.

I always dreamed of going back to where my childhood and youth passed. I want that, when my time comes, I am buried in my homeland.”

“I am returning to my home, and my joy knows no bounds,” said another former internally displaced person from the village of Girmizibazar in the Khojavand district, Ilyas Guliyev, on the eve of returning to his native land.

“May Allah rest the souls of our martyrs and grant health to our veterans. Thanks to them, we are returning to our homes,” the former displaced person noted.

He added: “I am returning to my home, and my joy knows no bounds. May other former internally displaced persons also be granted the opportunity to return to their homeland.”

For years, displaced families were temporarily accommodated in dormitories, sanatoriums, children’s camps, and unfinished or administrative buildings. Today, following Azerbaijan’s victory in the Second Karabakh War (2020) under the leadership of President Ilham Aliyev, Supreme Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces, thousands of families are being resettled in their ancestral homes after more than three decades.

By Vugar Khalilov