34th anniversary of Maragha massacre 

ArmInfo. 34 years have passed since the massacre in the Armenian village of Maragha in the Martakert region of the Republic of Artsakh - an unprecedented war  crime committed by Azerbaijan, motivated by hatred towards Armenians,  with the aim of exterminating the Armenian population.

On April 10, 1992, after several hours of artillery shelling,  Azerbaijani armed units invaded Maragha. A significant portion of the  population had been evacuated, but those remaining in the village  were subjected to inhumane torture and murder by Azerbaijani  soldiers. Artsakh's self-defense forces managed to liberate Maragha,  but two weeks later, Azerbaijani forces attacked the village again  and committed further crimes against residents who had returned to  bury their relatives.

Maragha was captured by Azerbaijani armed forces and remains under  Azerbaijani occupation to this day.  According to various sources,  including reports from Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International,  more than 50 civilians, including 30 women, were brutally killed as a  result of war crimes committed by Azerbaijani armed forces in  Maragha. Another 50 people, including 29 women and 9 children, were  taken captive, the fate of 19 of whom remains unknown. According to  human rights activist Baroness Caroline Cox, a member and former  Deputy Speaker of the British House of Lords who visited the village  with a group of organization representatives immediately after the  tragedy, the bodies of the brutally murdered residents of Maragha  were dismembered, mutilated, and burned. Lady Cox called Maragha "a  modern-day Golgotha, only many times worse."

The massacre of the Armenians of Maragha was yet another  manifestation of the consistent policy of ethnic cleansing carried  out by the Azerbaijani authorities against the Armenian people, first  in Sumgait, Baku, and other settlements in Azerbaijan in 1988-1990,  and later in Northern Artsakh. The fact that the commander of the  Azerbaijani armed forces who committed the massacre in Maragha,  Shahin Taliboglu, was awarded the title of National Hero of  Azerbaijan is evidence that responsibility for this crime lies  entirely with the Azerbaijani authorities. Impunity for Azerbaijan's  crimes against Armenians and the lack of an adequate political and  legal assessment by the international community have created fertile  ground for the entrenchment of a climate of hatred toward Armenians  and everything Armenian at the state level in Azerbaijan.

The massacre of civilians in Maragha is a crime against humanity with  no statute of limitations and must be condemned by the international  community, and its organizers and perpetrators must be justly  punished.