US Miami-Dade district honors Khojaly tragedy victims with Day of Remembrance PHOTO

The US district of Miami-Dade has declared February 26 as the Day of Remembrance of Khojaly genocide.

The declaration was signed by Miami-Dade Mayor Daniella Levine Cava and Chairman of the County Commissioners Board of County Commissioners, Anthony Rodriguez, Caliber.Az reports citing local media.

The declaration highlights the tragic events that took place on the night of February 26, 1992, when more than 600 Azerbaijani civilians, including women, children, and the elderly, were killed in a massacre carried out by Armenian gangs in the town of Khojaly.

The document also emphasizes that respected international human rights organizations, such as Human Rights Watch, have labeled this tragedy as the largest massacre in the region.

As part of the declaration, Miami-Dade County has officially recognized February 26 as Khojaly Remembrance Day and invited residents to join local authorities in honoring the memory of the Khojaly genocide victims on its 33rd anniversary.

The document was presented to Tohfa Eminova, Chairwoman of the Azerbaijani-American Cultural Association, which has been active in Miami since 2006.

The Khojaly genocide is the gravest crime of genocide committed against peaceful Azerbaijani people in the course of Armenia’s aggressive war against Azerbaijan. On the night of February 25-26, 1992, in violation of all international legal norms, Armenian armed forces attacked the civilian population of the sieged town of Khojaly with heavy military equipment, killing them with unprecedented brutality and razing the town to the ground.

As a result of crime against not only the people of Azerbaijan but against humanity, 613 civilian Azerbaijanis, including 63 children, 106 women and 70 elders were brutally murdered on grounds of national identity. The Khojaly genocide is one of a series of acts of mass slaughter aiming to crush those who rose up for the defence of their lands from Armenian armed forces’ aggression, to break their will to fight and annihilate the Azerbaijani population of then-time Nagorno-Karabakh.

By Vafa Guliyeva