Tuesday, June 25 2024 17:54

ArmInfo. From September 25, 2023 to May 20, 2024, 17,269 forcibly displaced persons from Nagorno-Karabakh  left Armenia, of which 7,138 returned to the RA. The National Security Service (NSS) of Armenia states in response to an ArmInfo request.

"From September 25, 2023 to May 20, 2024, 17,269 persons forcibly  displaced from Nagorno-Karabakh left the Republic of Armenia by air  and land, of which 7,138 returned", the NSS response says.

The exodus of Armenians from Nagorno-Karabakh (Republic of Artsakh)  began on September 24, 2023.  This was preceded by a months-long  blockade of Artsakh by Azerbaijan (since December 12, 2022)  and the  hostilities launched by Azerbaijan on September 19, 2023, which  caused an acute humanitarian crisis in the region. On September 20,  the NKR authorities agreed to negotiations and the disarmament of the  NKR Defense Army. On September 28, NKR President Samvel Shahramanyan  signed a decree on the termination of the existence of the Republic  of Nagorno-Karabakh (Artsakh) from January 1, 2024 and the  dissolution of all state institutions. The population of  Nagorno-Karabakh, including those outside the republic, after the  entry into force of this Decree, was ordered to familiarize  themselves with the conditions of reintegration presented by the  Republic of Azerbaijan, to subsequently make an independent and  individual decision on the possibility of staying (returning) to  Nagorno-Karabakh. On October 19, 2022, at a cabinet meeting, Prime  Minister Nikol Pashinyan announced that more than 3,000 forcibly  displaced refugees from Artsakh had left Armenia. Then he had to  refute several times rumors about a mass outflow of forcibly  displaced persons from Nagorno-Karabakh from Armenia. "There are no  emigration phenomena, because in the first days there was a rather  alarming number of people leaving, but we assumed that in most cases  people leave simply at the invitation of relatives, we see that the  situation has stabilized,"  Pashinyan said on May 23, 2023 at a  meeting of the Cabinet of Ministers of the Republic of Armenia. And  on May 7 of this year, the Prime Minister stated that the information  that about 16 thousand citizens of Artsakh, forcibly displaced to  Armenia, left the Republic of Armenia does not correspond to reality.  Meanwhile, social networks point to the figure of 25,000  back in  December last year, and before that, in October, former State  Minister of Artsakh Artak Beglaryan announced that 10 thousand  Artsakh residents had left Armenia.  According to the Migration and  Citizenship Service of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the  Republic of Armenia, as of January 2024, 115 thousand citizens  forcibly displaced from Nagorno-Karabakh were registered.