Thousands of Ethnic Armenians Flee Nagorno-Karabakh

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Facts

• The leadership of the contested breakaway region of Nagorno-Karabakh announced on Sunday that the region's 120K Armenian inhabitants would leave the area after Azerbaijan launched a 24-hour-long offensive last week leading to the surrender of local forces.¹
• Some 4,850 people have reportedly crossed into Armenia from the region as of Monday, and the Armenian government said it was preparing for thousands of refugees.  Residents began leaving the territory's de facto capital on Sunday evening via the Lachin corridor toward the border with Armenia.²
• Meanwhile, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan on Sunday criticized his country's security agreements with Russia as 'ineffective' after Moscow refused to intervene. Armenia is a member of the Russia-dominated Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) pledging mutual protection in the event of an attack.³
• Turkish Pres. Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is expected to meet with his Azerbaijani counterpart Ilham Aliyev to discuss the situation in the region which is internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan. The two leaders will also discuss a range of related issues.⁴
• The conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan dates back to the fall of the Soviet Union when the two former Soviet republics declared independence — with both claiming sovereignty over the majority Armenian enclave of Nagorno-Karbakh. In the first war in the early 1990s, Armenia managed to capture the territory.⁵
• In 2020, a second war broke out, with Azerbaijan capturing large swaths of territory and Russia playing a key role in negotiating a cease-fire. Tensions increased that year after Azerbaijan imposed a partial blockade of the Lachin Corridor — the only road that links Nagorno-Karabakh with Armenia.⁶

Sources: ¹Reuters, ²France 24, ³Dw.com (a), ⁴Dw.com (b), ⁵BBC News and ⁶Guardian.

Narratives

• Narrative A, as provided by The armenian weekly. Hundreds of years of Armenian history will soon be erased as Azerbaijan seeks to ethnically cleanse Nagorno-Karabakh, known as Artsakh to its indigenous Armenian population. The world, yet again, is watching in silence as long-dispossessed people are pushed out of their homeland.
• Narrative B, as provided by Aze.media. Azerbaijan has finally triumphed and reclaimed its sovereignty over Nagorno-Karabakh. The goals of this anti-terror operation were to simply dislodge Armenia's military presence in the region and ensure the return of refugees displaced by Armenia in the first war. If civilians choose to leave the region that is their choice, but Azerbaijan has done nothing to indicate that this is its intent, as it only seeks to live in harmony with its neighbors.