Monday, October 12 2020 11:51

ArmInfo.Armenian Minister of Health Arsen Torosyan appealed to WHO with a request to take measures to suppress the humanitarian catastrophe in Artsakh as a  result of the military aggression of Azerbaijan.

"We call on the World Health Organization (WHO), which is the leading organization  coordinating work to combat the COVID-19 epidemic, to take  appropriate measures to suppress the humanitarian catastrophe in  Artsakh as a result of the military aggression of Azerbaijan and to  prevent the exacerbation of the second wave of COVID-19," says in a  letter to WHO Director-General Tedros Adanom Ghebreyesus.

The minister stressed that at present the world is witnessing a  humanitarian catastrophe in the Republic of Artsakh, when the  civilian population is deprived of basic medical services, frightened  by the bombings and rocket attacks. All civilians, including children  and the elderly, are under constant threat of loss of life and  health. "If this massive military aggression on the part of  Azerbaijan continues to target the civilian population and  infrastructure of Nagorno-Karabakh, then the world health community  will not be able to protect vulnerable groups of the population from  the harmful effects of the coronavirus," Arsen Torosyan said in his  letter.

Azerbaijan's aggression is taking place against the backdrop of a  health crisis, hampering national, regional and global responses to  the coronavirus and contributing to the spread of the virus.

Despite the constant bombardment of civilian infrastructures,  including humanitarian and environmental facilities, Torosyan said  that medical personnel are fulfilling their mission in the fight for  the lives and health of the wounded, including foreign journalists  who were seriously injured as a result of deliberate attacks by the  Azerbaijani armed forces. Expressing regret that several medical  workers were also fatally injured while fulfilling their obligations,  the Minister of Health said that on October 11, when the truce was  announced, an ambulance carrying the wounded was targeted by the  Azerbaijani Armed Forces.

"The military offensive launched by Azerbaijan against the civilian  population of Nagorno-Karabakh and carried out directly with the  participation of Turkish-backed foreign terrorist fighters has led to  the most devastating escalation of conflict in the region since the  1990s. This genocidal Turkish-Azerbaijani alliance is increasingly  devastating in parallel with the spread of COVID-19, "he wrote.