Nagorno-Karabakh will cease to exist: The Azerbaijan-Armenia conflict visually explained
Thousands of people are fleeing into Armenia after Azerbaijan seized Armenian-controlled breakaway region Nagorno-Karabakh in a one-day operation, ending three decades of Armenian rule.
Where is Nagorno-Karabakh?
Nagorno-Karabakh is a mountainous region internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan. Roughly 120,000 ethnic Armenians were living there out of the population of a little over 140,000.
Under the Soviet Union, which included both Azerbaijan and Armenia, Nagorno-Karabakh became an autonomous region within the republic of Azerbaijan. With the breakup of the Soviet Union, Karabakh declared itself an independent republic. The region came under the control of ethnic Armenian forces backed by the Armenian military in a six-year war that ended in 1994 and killed about 30,000 people. Nagorno-Karabakh became de facto independent, with a self-proclaimed government in Stepanakert, but was heavily reliant on close economic, political and military support from Armenia, according to Global Conflict Tracker.
A second war took place in 2020 when more than 7,000 soldiers and civilians were reported killed in six weeks of fighting. Azerbaijan recaptured much of the territory and its surroundings. The war ended with a Russia-brokered truce and the deployment of 2,000 Russian peacekeepers to monitor the region.
In December 2022, Azerbaijan-backed activists established a military checkpoint on the Lachin Corridor, the only road that connects Armenia to Nagorno-Karabakh, and the population faced shortage of food and medicine as a result.
What happened in the latest fighting?
On Sept. 19, Azerbaijan launched a military offensive and in 24 hours ended the 35-year conflict over the territory. The self-declared government of Nagorno-Karabakh agreed to capitulate and dismantle its armed forces, leading to the cease-fire.
Azerbaijan’s Health Ministry said 192 Azerbaijani troops were killed and 511 were wounded.
More than 68,000 people fleeing from Nagorno-Karabakh had crossed into Armenia by Thursday morning, according to Armenian authorities. Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan accused neighboring Azerbaijan of "ethnic cleansing" and predicted there will be no more Armenians left in the region in the coming days. Pashinyan said in a speech Sunday that his government “will welcome our sisters and brothers of Nagorno-Karabakh to the Republic of Armenia with all care.” Armenia's population is about 2.8 million.
As thousands try to leave the region, fuel stations have been overwhelmed, according to reports. On Monday, an explosion at a fuel depot in Nagorno-Karabakh killed at least 68 people left more than 100 missing, according to the separatist authorities.
On Tuesday, envoys from Armenia and Azerbaijan met in Brussels in preparation for a possible meeting between the leaders themselves in Spain on Oct. 5.
On Wednesday, Azerbaijan announced it arrested the former head of the self-declared Nagorno-Karabakh’s government Ruben Vardanyan as he tried to cross into Armenia. Vardanyan made his fortune in investment banking in Russia before moving to the region and heading the separatist government from November 2022 until February.
On Thursday, the president of the unrecognized republic Samvel Shakhramanyan had signed an agreement that would “dissolve all state institutions and organizations under their departmental authority by January 1, 2024.” According to the decree, the breakaway region will cease to exist and its remaining ethnic Armenian population will have to accept being ruled as part of Azerbaijan.