Baku urges int'l pressure on Armenia to reveal fate of missing Azerbaijanis

Azerbaijan has called for international pressure on Armenia to explain the fate of thousands of its citizens who disappeared during the first Karabakh war in the early 1990s.

"Today is International Day of the Disappeared. [For] almost three decades, the fate of 3,890 Azerbaijanis, who went missing as a result of aggression by Armenia, is unknown. We urge international pressure on Armenia to fulfil obligations under international law. Don't Forget Missing Azerbaijanis," Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Jeyhun Bayramov said on Twitter.

The International Day of the Victims of Enforced Disappearances is observed globally on August 30 to raise awareness that enforced disappearance is a crime and should not be used as a tool to deal with conflict situations.

Armenia has yet to present Azerbaijan with details about the whereabouts of about 4,000 people who went missing during the first Karabakh war.  

Today is #InternationalDayoftheDisappeared. Almost 3 decades, fate of 3.890 #Azerbaijanis, who went missing as a result of aggression by #Armenia, is unknown.#OTD, we urge international pressure on Armenia to fulfill obligations under int. law. #DontForgetMissingAzerbaijanis pic.twitter.com/X9NsQrBhdC

— Jeyhun Bayramov (@bayramov_jeyhun) August 30, 2022

About 30,000 Azerbaijanis were killed and one million got displaced from their ancestral lands during the first Karabakh war from 1988 to 1994. 

In the early 1990s, Armenians perpetrated systematic crimes and atrocities against Azerbaijanis to break the spirit of the nation and annihilate the Azerbaijani people of Karabakh. The Khojaly genocide is regarded as the culmination of Armenian mass murders.

Some 613 Azerbaijanis, including 63 children, 106 women and 70 elders were brutally murdered on the ground of national identity in Khojaly in 1992.

This heinous act was preceded by a slew of others. Armenians set fire to around 20 buildings in Gazakh District's Baghanis-Ayrim village, killing eight Azerbaijanis. A family of five, including a 39-day-old newborn, were all burnt alive.

Between June and December 1991, Armenian troops murdered 12 and wounded 15 Azerbaijanis in Khojavand District's Garadaghli and Asgaran District's Meshali villages.

Armenian military detachments bombed buses on the Shusha-Jamilli, Aghdam-Khojavand, and Aghdam-Garadaghli routes in August and September of the same year, killing 17 Azerbaijanis and injuring over 90 others.

In October and November 1991, Armenians burned, destroyed, and plundered over 30 settlements in the mountainous area of Karabakh, including Tugh, Imarat-Garvand, Sirkhavand, Meshali, Jamilli, Umudlu, Garadaghli, Karkijahan, and other significant villages.

Many of the Armenia-committed massacres on Azerbaijan's formerly occupied territories meet entirely the requirements of the Genocide Convention, which was approved by the United Nations General Assembly on December 9, 1948.

A Moscow-brokered ceasefire deal that Baku and Yerevan signed on November 10, 2020, brought an end to six weeks of war between Armenia and Azerbaijan. The Azerbaijani army declared a victory against the Armenian troops. The signed agreement obliged Armenia to withdraw its troops from the Azerbaijani lands that it had occupied since the early 1990s. The agreement stipulated the return of Azerbaijan's Armenian-occupied Kalbajar, Aghdam and Lachin regions. Before the signing of the deal, the Azerbaijani army had liberated around 300 villages, settlements, city centres, and historic Shusha city.