“People are standing in queues for hours to get minimal food rations. People are fainting in the bread queues”… these were the words of a local journalist from the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region in one of her recorded voice messages sent to the BBC last week.
In June 2023, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian accused Azerbaijan of “ethnic cleansing” with its continued blockade of the breakaway Nagorno-Karabakh region.
Azerbaijan’s blockade of the only road linking Armenia to Nagorno-Karabakh has created a shortage of food, water, medicine and other essential items in the region which has 1,20,000 inhabitants.
Baku’s installation of an illegal checkpoint in the Lachin Corridor and its ongoing blockade are “actions that once again substantiate our fear that Azerbaijan is conducting a policy of ethnic cleansing”, PM Pashinian said in Parliament in June.
Former Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, Luis Moreno Ocampo recently quoted an observation of the European Court of Human Rights and the International Criminal Court of Justice: “The 1,20,000 ethnic Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh are now entirely encircled by Azerbaijan, completely cut off from the access to the outside world.”
“They are effectively under siege,” he said.
CNN reported that shortages of food, fuel, and medicines caused by the months-long blockade have taken an increasing toll on the region’s population.
Gegham Stepanyan, the ombudsman of the NKR, on August 15 confirmed that officials reported the first death from malnutrition in the region.
Is it a genocide?
In a conservative sense, we describe genocide as the slaughtering of people belonging to a particular community. But according to the UN Genocide Convention, “Genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such: (a) Killing members of the group; (b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; (c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; (d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; (e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.”
And genocide is exactly what has been happening in Nagorno-Karabakh as found in investigations by the International Court of Justice.
The top court found the occurrence of several elements of Genocide as per the UN Genocide Convention including “deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction.”
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“People are standing in queues for hours to get minimal food rations. People are fainting in the bread queues”… these were the words of a local journalist from the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region in one of her recorded voice messages sent to the BBC last week.
In June 2023, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian accused Azerbaijan of “ethnic cleansing” with its continued blockade of the breakaway Nagorno-Karabakh region.
Azerbaijan’s blockade of the only road linking Armenia to Nagorno-Karabakh has created a shortage of food, water, medicine and other essential items in the region which has 1,20,000 inhabitants.
Baku’s installation of an illegal checkpoint in the Lachin Corridor and its ongoing blockade are “actions that once again substantiate our fear that Azerbaijan is conducting a policy of ethnic cleansing”, PM Pashinian said in Parliament in June.
Former Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, Luis Moreno Ocampo recently quoted an observation of the European Court of Human Rights and the International Criminal Court of Justice: “The 1,20,000 ethnic Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh are now entirely encircled by Azerbaijan, completely cut off from the access to the outside world.”
“They are effectively under siege,” he said.
CNN reported that shortages of food, fuel, and medicines caused by the months-long blockade have taken an increasing toll on the region’s population.
Gegham Stepanyan, the ombudsman of the NKR, on August 15 confirmed that officials reported the first death from malnutrition in the region.
Is it a genocide?
In a conservative sense, we describe genocide as the slaughtering of people belonging to a particular community. But according to the UN Genocide Convention, “Genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such: (a) Killing members of the group; (b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; (c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; (d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; (e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.”
And genocide is exactly what has been happening in Nagorno-Karabakh as found in investigations by the International Court of Justice.
The top court found the occurrence of several elements of Genocide as per the UN Genocide Convention including “deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction.”