DM Monitoring
BAKU: A growing stream of ethnic Armenian refugees are fleeing Nagorno-Karabakh following Azerbaijan’s seizure of the disputed region last week.
More than 6,500 people have so far crossed into Armenia from the enclave, which is home to a majority of some 120,000 ethnic Armenians. They left after the government in Yerevan announced plans to move those made homeless by the fighting.
It also warned that those who stayed could face ethnic cleansing. Azerbaijan has said it wants to re-integrate the ethnic Armenians as “equal citizens”.
The BBC has spoken to some of the refugees who arrived in the city of Goris on Sunday, close to the border between Armenia and Karabakh. “I gave my whole life to my homeland,” said one man.
“It would be better if they killed me than this.”
A woman, Veronica, told the BBC that this was the second time she had become a refugee. The first time was during the conflict in 2020.
The main square of Goris is crowded. The theatre nearby is turned into a base for the Red Cross.
Tatiana Oganesyan, doctor and head of a foundation of doctors and volunteers that’s now helping refugees in Goris, told the media that people who come to the doctors are exhausted, malnourished and psychologically crushed.
“People are shocked, they are telling us: I need pills, they are blue,” she says. Doctors then need to figure out their medication and find it for them.
“We have nothing,” says an elderly woman who just arrived in Goris. She points at her jumper, saying it’s all she could bring with her from home. Her son is on crutches near her.
In the nearby village of Kornidzor, refugees who were being processed said they did not believe they could be safe under Azerbaijani rule and did not expect ever to be able to return home.
The Armenian government said in a statement on Sunday that hundreds of the refugees had already been provided with government-funded housing.
But it has not released a clear plan of how it could cope with an influx of people. Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan announced last week that plans were in place to look after up to 40,000 refugees.
Armenians the media has spoken to have said they are prepared to take refugees into their homes.
Meanwhile, more than 140 people have been arrested in Yerevan on Monday following the latest anti-government protests, according to local media quoting the country’s interior ministry.
The Tass news agency said special forces had begun detaining demonstrators who blocked roads in Yerevan.
Police were also stationed outside the main government building, which houses the prime minister’s offices and which demonstrators have been trying to break into.
Protests first broke out last week over the government’s handling of the crisis in Nagorno-Karabakh.
Mr Pashinyan has been accused of granting too many concessions to Azerbaijan and there are calls for his resignation.
The Armenian separatist forces in the territory agreed to disarm on Wednesday, following a lightning-fast Azerbaijani military offensive.
Armenia has repeatedly said a mass exodus from the region would be the fault of the Azerbaijani authorities.
In a TV address on Sunday, Mr Pashinyan said many inside the enclave would “see expulsion from the homeland as the only way out” unless Azerbaijan provided “real living conditions” and “effective mechanisms of protection against ethnic cleansing”.
He repeated that his government was prepared to “lovingly welcome our brothers and sisters”.
