Die Zeit: Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh  are exposed to `slow`  genocide by Azerbaijan

ArmInfo.Azerbaijan has been forcing the population of the Nagorno Karabakh enclave to starve for  a month. There is not enough of everything - food, gasoline, medicines. The German die Zeit warns about the approaching catastrophe.

The article below specifically notes:" whatever you call it, when a  piece of land is cut off from the world, when medicines are no longer  available, and patients walk to clinics because there are no more  ambulances due to lack of fuel? When supermarket shelves are empty,  when people queue for hours for bread and never get it, when  miscarriages skyrocket because pregnant women no longer receive  medical care, when dogs and cats roam the streets because that their  owners themselves have nothing to eat?

Nina, 23, a primary school teacher from Nagorno-Karabakh, puts it  this way: "We are witnessing a slow genocide."

This is exactly what Armenians go through in the enclave of  Nagorno-Karabakh, which has been a point of contention between  Azerbaijan and Armenia for decades.

Anyone who listened to Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and  his sworn enemy, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev, in one of their  rare joint speeches, would hardly be able to get out of the heap of  centuries of historical dogmatism. 

The enclave,which now almost entirely populated by Armenians,  declared itself the independent Republic of Artsakh in 1991, but is  not internationally recognized. According to international law, the  territory belongs to Azerbaijan. At the same time, the fears of the  Armenians living there seem to be confirmed: the whole world now sees  what a catastrophe it will be if they are included in Azerbaijan.

Whomever you talk to these days in Nagorno-Karabakh, be it primary  school teacher Nina, teacher Zaruhi Grigoryan, pediatrician Kristine  Aghajanyan, or Artsakh Commissioner for Human Rights Gegham  Stepanyan, you will everywhere hear the frightening words of the 20th  century: genocide, ethnic cleansing.  This is how the victims  describe not only their hunger, their catastrophic supply situation.  They connect their suffering with the historical experience of 1915,  when the Ottoman Empire, with the assistance of Kaiser's Germany,  killed up to one and a half million Armenians."

The authors of the article also draw attention to the fact that the  Azerbaijani dictator Aliyev is threatening the "separatists" that  they must either live under the Azerbaijani flag or leave.

"He has been forcing up to 120,000 Armenians to starve in the enclave  for a month. Armenians are afraid of repeating history, as they say.  However, sincere fear is expressed in their eyes at the thought of  what awaits them if they live under the Azerbaijani dictatorship,"  the publication notes. 

The authors of the article recall that the blockade began in  December, initially disguised as a protest by ostensibly Azerbaijani  environmental activists, in a section that is now under the control  of Azerbaijan and accessible only by one road from Armenia - the  Kashatagh (Lachin) corridor.

"First, the Azerbaijanis blocked this corridor. Then they set up a  checkpoint; eventually, they stopped supplying Russian troops and  humanitarian aid from the International Red Cross, as well as  transporting patients. A month has passed since then. Nagorno  Karabakh is fundamentally cut off from the world," the authors of the  article note.

The publication also contains interviews with citizens from Artsakh  who describe the situation in which they find themselves as a result  of Azerbaijan's actions.

Pediatrician Kristine Aghajanyan from Stepanakert, a mother of two  children, told the publication that she is constantly counting how  much food they have left, how much they will last. "My sister has  four children, she no longer knows what to cook for them. You have to  stand in line for bread from early morning for hours," says  Aghajnyan.

In turn, Artsakh Ombudsman Gegham Stepanyan stated that the  Azerbaijanis use hunger as a weapon to achieve their political goals.  "The people of Nagorno-Karabakh are being forcibly subjugated.  Azerbaijan wants to conquer this region - without the Armenian  population in it," Stepanyan said.