ArmInfo.In connection with the 33rd anniversary of the pogroms of Armenians in the city of Sumgait from February 27 to 29, 1988, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan , together with the Chairman of the National Assembly Ararat Mirzoyan, Deputy Prime Minister Tigran Avinyan and other high-ranking officials, visited the Tsitsernakaberd memorial complex, paying tribute respect for the memory of the victims of this crime.
According to the press service of the government, Nikol Pashinyan laid a wreath and flowers at the memorials of the victims.
Recall that ethnic riots in the city of Sumgait, Azerbaijan SSR took place on February 27-29, 1988. They were accompanied by massive violence against the Armenian population, robberies, murders, arson and destruction of property.
In the words of British journalist Tom de Waal, these events were "the first outbreak of mass violence in modern Soviet history." According to the official data of the USSR Prosecutor General's Office, 26 citizens of Armenian nationality were killed during the riots, more than a hundred people were wounded. According to unofficial estimates, the number of killed Armenians is in the hundreds. During the operation to restore order, injuries of varying severity were received by 276 servicemen. February 29, 1988 on At a meeting of the Politburo of the CPSU Central Committee in Moscow, it was officially recognized that the mass pogroms and killings in Sumgait were carried out along ethnic lines.