Dozens Killed in Nagorno-Karabakh Fuel Depot Explosion

Facts

• The death toll in the explosion and fire at a fuel depot near the capital of the breakaway region of Nagorno-Karabakh on Monday rose to 68 on Tuesday, with 290 others wounded and 105 people still missing.¹
• The cause of the blast remains unclear, with the de facto ethnic Armenian leadership deeming sabotage unlikely and suggesting that negligence was the probable reason for this deadly incident.²
• This comes as some 53K people, over 40% of its total population, have fled to Armenia after Azerbaijan forced separatist authorities to agree to lay down weapons and start reintegration talks last week.³
• While several media outlets had previously reported that the death toll had risen to 125, it was later clarified that this figure was the number of people killed during last week's military operation and then transported to Armenia.⁴
• The mountainous region has seen violent conflict since the fall of the Soviet Union, with Azerbaijan recapturing most of it in a five-week war in 2020 and blocking the Lachin corridor — the only road linking the enclave to Armenia — last year.⁵
• In a further development related to the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict on Tuesday, envoys from both countries met in Brussels for EU-brokered talks — the first diplomatic negotiations between them since local forces surrendered to Azerbaijan last week.⁶

Sources: ¹Al Jazeera, ²Daily Mail, ³Guardian, ⁴Reuters, ⁵The telegraph and ⁶BBC News.

Narratives

• Narrative A, as provided by Am. Though this explosion apparently has nothing to do with the ongoing crisis in Nagorno-Karabakh, such a high death toll was only possible as ethnic Armenians are desperately fleeing the region to seek refuge and safety as Azerbaijan carries out crimes against humanity under the conniving gaze of the international community.
• Narrative B, as provided by Aze.media. While the Armenian propaganda tries to use this tragedy for its own purposes, including to disseminate fear among Armenians and likely to smuggle regional leaders out of Nagorno-Karabakh, Azerbaijan has actively sought to solve humanitarian problems by sending food, fuel, and medical assistance to those in distress.

Predictions