One boy described the moment Azerbaijani fighters attacked his village, saying they shot and killed civilians and that when his community went back to collect the bodies, they found the deceased had their arms, ears, and legs cut off.
Lancaster spoke to a mother who was fleeing her homeland with her four children, saying, “We’re saving our lives and children from Azerbaijanis.”
“We lost everything,” she said. “We lost our Motherland, our homes, our history.”
Another woman told the journalist the Azerbaijanis “killed children,” saying, “They cut their heads off! They even killed small children!”
One woman claimed one of her young relatives was killed in the attacks, explaining, “They destroyed children in kindergartens. They cut their arms and legs off.”
These disturbing on-the-ground testimonies highlight the horrific situation the Artsakh are facing.
Over 100,000 people, which is over 80% of the Artsakh people in the Nagorno-Karabakh region, have relocated in the past week following the sudden military action by Azerbaijan.
The UN and United States have yet to condemn these war crimes.
COUNTERPUNCH: Responsibility to Protect the Armenian population of Nagorno Karabakh
SEPTEMBER 29, 2023
A view of the forested mountains of Nagorno-Karabakh. Photograph Source: Sonashen – CC BY-SA 3.0
If the “doctrine” of Responsibility to Protect (R2P) means anything[1], then it applies to the tragedy unfolding since 2020 in the Armenian Republic of Artsakh, better known as Nagorno Karabakh. The illegal aggression by Azerbaijan in 2020, accompanied by war crimes and crimes against humanity, as documented among others by Human Rights Watch[2], constituted a continuation of the Ottoman genocide against the Armenians[3]. It should be duly investigated by the International Criminal Court in the Hague pursuant to articles 5, 6, 7 and 8 of the Rome Statute.[4] The President of Azerbaijan, Ilham Aliyev should be indicted and prosecuted. There must not be impunity for these crimes.
As former UN Independent Expert, and because of the gravity of the Azeri offensive of September 2023, I have proposed to the President of the UN Human Rights Council, Ambassador Vaclav Balek, and to the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk to convene a Special Session of the Human Rights Council to stop the egregious violations of human rights committed by Azerbaijan and provide immediate humanitarian assistance to the Armenian population, victim, among other things of an illegal siege and blockade which have caused deaths by hunger and a massive exodus toward Armenia.
This mountainous region adjacent to Armenia is what is left of 3000-year-old settlements of the Armenian ethnic group, already known to the Persians and Greeks as Alarodioi, mentioned by Darius I and Herodotus. The Armenian kingdom flourished in Roman times with its capital, Artashat (Artaxata) on the Aras River near modern Yerevan. King Tiridates III was converted to Christianity by St. Gregory the Illuminator (Krikor) in 314 and established Christianity as the state religion. Byzantine emperor Justinian I reorganized Armenia into four provinces and completed the task of Hellenizing the country by the year 536.
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About the author: Alfred M. de Zayas studied history and law at Harvard, where he obtained his J.D. in 1970. Mr. de Zayas has been visiting professor of law at numerous universities. From 1981 to 2003 he was a senior lawyer with the Division of Human Rights/ Centre for Human Rights/ Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Secretary of the UN Human Rights Committee, and Chief of the Petitions Department. In 2009 de Zayas was a member of the UN workshop that drafted a report on the human right to peace, which was subsequently discussed and further elaborated by the Advisory Committee of the Human Rights Council, and led to the pertinent General Assembly resolution. From May 2012 to April 2018 he served as the first Independent Expert on the Promotion of a Democratic and Equitable International Order and produced 14 reports to the Human Rights Council and UN General Assembly.
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