PACE Monitoring Committee co-rapporteurs arrive in liberated Aghdam

Jan Liddell-Grainger and Liz Kristoffersen, co-papporteurs of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) Monitoring Committee, have begun their tour in Azerbaijan's liberated Aghhdam district.

During the visit, the co-rapporteurs will get acquainted with the war crimes committed by Armenia in Aghdam, as well as with the construction and restoration work carried out after the liberation of the city, Azertag reports.

Occupied by Armenian forces in 1993, Aghdam is known as the Hiroshima of the Caucasus for the level of destruction during the three decades of occupation.

Armenia's aggression and illegal occupation caused irreparable damages to Azerbaijan's cultural heritage, which includes thousands of cultural values, including monuments of the world and national importance, mosques, temples, mausoleums, museums, art galleries, sites of archaeological excavations, libraries and rare manuscripts.

Sixty-four of 67 mosques and Islamic religious sites were destroyed, greatly damaged, and desecrated.

More than 900 cemeteries were destroyed and vandalised. The evidence of illegal "archaeological excavations" and so-called "restoration work" was found on the liberated Azerbaijani territories, confirming previous reports of Armenia's attempts to hide and falsify cultural, historical and scientific evidence.

Hundreds of cultural institutions, 927 libraries with a book fund of 4.6 million, 22 museums and museum branches with more than 100,000 exhibits, 4 art galleries, 8 culture, and recreation parks, as well as one of the oldest settlements in the world in Fuzuli region - Azykh Cave, the Shusha State Historical and Architectural Reserve had become victims of the Armenian vandalism.