EU increases humanitarian aid to displaced Karabakh Armenians with  EUR 5.5 million

ArmInfo.Today, the Commission is allocating an additional EUR 5.5 million in humanitarian aid to support the Armenians displaced from the Nagorno-Karabakh region. Many of the people who fled to Armenia  during the last year's mass exodus took little to no belongings with them, leaving them dependent on emergency aid. EU Commission press release reads.

"EUR1.5 million of this funding is assigned for disaster preparedness  to enhance the resilience of vulnerable communities to potential  crises. The remaining EUR 4 million of humanitarian funding is mainly  focussing on providing the displaced Karabakh Armenians with regular  cash transfers and vouchers to help them cover their basic needs.   Through its humanitarian partners, the EU aims to support people in  need with access to food, shelter healthcare, mental health services,  and protection.

Underlining EU's humanitarian support to Karabakh Armenians,  Commissioner for Crisis Management, Janez Lenarcic, said: "This is  the first winter for thousands of Karabakh Armenians who fled to  Armenia last Autumn. In these challenging times, it is our  humanitarian duty to provide protection and assistance to the people  most in need. With this new EUR5.5 million funding, we will aim to  further strengthen the existing EU humanitarian response to the  displaced people in Armenia, by providing them with access to basic  services."

This funding comes in addition to the EUR12.2 million already  announced by the European Commission in response to the mass exodus  of Karabakh Armenians in September 2023", the source notes.  On  September 19, 2023, Azerbaijan, under the pretext of an  "anti-terrorist operation," undertook another act of aggression  against Artsakh. As a result of enemy aggression, hundreds of Artsakh  residents were injured, and more than 200 deaths were reported,  including civilians. On September 20, Artsakh fell.  Azerbaijan began  the forcible subjugation of the NKR. In addition, on September 20,  late in the evening it became known that Azerbaijan had deliberately  shot two vehicles of the Russian peacekeeping contingent, killing 6  people, including the deputy commander of the RPC. On September 22,  the process of abolishing the Artsakh Defense Army began. During  search operations from September 21 to 24, the NKR Ministry of  Internal Affairs discovered the bodies of 105 Artsakh residents,  including brutally murdered children and elderly people. Today  Artsakh is completely de-Armenized; its entire indigenous population,  over 100 thousand people, was forced to flee to Armenia under the  threat of physical violence.

On September 25, near Stepanakert, an explosion occurred at a fuel  warehouse, and a tank with gasoline exploded. At the time of the  explosion, there were a large number of people on site who were  queuing for gasoline to leave Artsakh amid the latest Azerbaijani  aggression. According to the Investigative Committee of Armenia218  people were killed from an explosion at a fuel warehouse, 215 of them  were identified. At least 120 people received injuries of varying  severity, mainly in the form of burns. At the moment, according to  the investigation, the whereabouts of 21 people are unknown.

Since the enemy aggression that began in the fall of 2020, which  ended in September of this year with the complete ethnic cleansing of  Artsakh, over 150 thousand Artsakh residents have become homeless.