Armenian FM, ICRC President discuss assistance to Artsakh refugees

ArmInfo. In Geneva, Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Armenia Ararat Mirzoyan had a meeting with Mirjana Spoljaric Egger, President of the International Committee of Red Cross.

As the press service of the Armenian Foreign Office reports, issues  on addressing the needs and rights of forcibly displaced people from  Nagorno-Karabakh as a result of the military attack and ethnic  cleansing carried out by Azerbaijan last September, as well as the  scope of cooperation with the ICRC on humanitarian issues were  discussed.

Minister Mirzoyan particularly emphasized the importance of the  repatriation of persons held in Azerbaijan, as well as working on  clarification of the fate of missing and forcibly disappeared  persons, reiterating the publicly expressed willingness of the  Armenian side to cooperate on this issue.

During the meeting, the current security situation in the South  Caucasus and the efforts of Armenia towards establishing peace and  stability in the region were also touched upon.

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 Armenia 218 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.