Some 342 Azerbaijani citizens become Armenia-planted landmine victims since 2020 Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry says

Some 342 Azerbaijani citizens have become victims of Armenia-planted landmines victims since the end of the 44-day war in 2020, the Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry said in a statement on January 25.

The ministry made the remarks in response to the statement of the Armenian National Security Service on the intention to hand over set of landmine maps to Azerbaijan, Caliber.Az reports citing the ministry.

“Armenia’s indiscriminate, massive and purposeful planting of landmines in the territories of Azerbaijan is one of the major threats to large-scale post-conflict restoration and reconstruction work, the civilian population living in these territories, and the return of IDPs and their peaceful lives in their homes. These actions of Armenia are not only a war crime, but also a serious violation of international humanitarian law and Armenia’s undertaken commitments,” the ministry said.

It underlined that Azerbaijan, both before the 2020 44-day war and during the post-conflict period, has repeatedly demanded Armenia to submit landmine maps.

“It is well known that the accuracy of landmine maps, the existence of which was denied by Armenia following the signing of the Trilateral Statement dated 10 November 2020, but later was submitted as a result of international pressure, is only 25%. We have frequently pointed out that the provided maps are ineffective, incomplete, and do not accurately portray the reality on the ground. Although these maps show that only 400 thousand landmines were reportedly deployed in our territories, the actual number of landmines surpasses one million.

At the same time, it is worth noting that more than 55% of landmine explosions in recent years occurred in locations outside the areas where maps were provided by Armenia. We remind that 342 of our fellow citizens have become landmine victims since the end of the Patriotic War in 2020, with 65 individuals killed, including three journalists. Out of 65 dead, 50 were civilians.

It is also the fact that, even after 2020, Armenia deployed new landmines of Armenia production within and along the perimeters of the territory of Azerbaijan where Russian peacekeeping forces were temporarily deployed, with about 500 thousand landmines planted. At the same time, this proves that there is no basis for the statements of Armenia declaring that it has neither produced nor exported landmines in recent decades.

This statement by the Armenian side demonstrates that the intention of this country is not a humanitarian one and this step could not be considered as a confidence-building measure. Azerbaijan expects Armenia to submit accurate maps of all land-mined sites that have not yet been fully presented to Azerbaijan.

Moreover, urgent measures have to be taken by Armenia to provide information on the fates of 4000 missing Azerbaijanis and places of mass graves where Azerbaijanis have been buried over the last 30 years,” the statement reads.

Earlier, the National Security Service of Armenia reported about the transfer of new data on minefields to the Azerbaijani side in the near future.

"The National Security Service of Armenia has resumed work on interviewing former ‘Nagorno-Karabakh servicemen’, as a result of which 8 new forms were revealed. These journals will be transferred to the Azerbaijani side through working channels in the coming days, and their copies will be sent to international partners," the statement said.

The new data was obtained as a result of a survey among "servicemen of Nagorno-Karabakh".