(United Nations) The UN team that visited Nagorno-Karabakh on Sunday, for the first time in about 30 years, saw no destruction or collected any evidence of violence against civilians since the ceasefire. -fire, a spokesperson said Monday.
The aim of the one-day mission, including representatives from several UN agencies and services, was to assess humanitarian needs in the former Armenian separatist enclave which capitulated after a lightning offensive by Azerbaijan.
They notably visited Stepanakert, capital of the region, called Khankendi by Baku.
“In the parts of the city visited,” the team “saw no damage to civilian public infrastructure, including hospitals, schools and housing, or to cultural and religious infrastructure,” the UN spokesperson said. Stéphane Dujarric, noting however that “no store seemed open”.
They also did not see any destruction of agricultural infrastructure or dead animals.
“Our colleagues were struck by the suddenness with which the local population fled, and by the suffering the experience caused them,” he added. However, “they have not collected any information, from the population or others, on violence against civilians following the last ceasefire.”
PHOTO EMMANUEL DUNAND, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
A damaged vehicle and furniture abandoned in front of a house in Stepanakert
“They stressed the need to rebuild trust,” which will require “time and effort from all parties,” he added.
The UN team, which will return “regularly” to the region, took the Lachin corridor, the only route between Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh through which “more than 100,000 Armenians have fled in recent days”.
The UN team was, however, able to observe “destruction” in Aghdam, which is part of the territories regained in 2020, as well as the “reconstruction efforts” led by Azerbaijan.
The United States reiterated on Monday its call for an international observation mission in Nagorno-Karabakh, in order to guarantee the right of return of tens of thousands of Armenians who fled the former separatist region.
“We reiterate our call for an international and independent observation mission” in the former enclave, in order to “reassure the population and guarantee the right and security of all those who wish to return there”, declared to the press the State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller.
However, he added, “Azerbaijan has given guarantees in this sense. We believe that there should be an international monitoring mission on site to observe and guarantee them.”
The spokesperson for American diplomacy refused to comment on whether Baku had committed “ethnic cleansing” in Nagorno-Karabakh, as Armenia accuses.
“We take any allegations of genocide or ethnic cleansing or other atrocities seriously. And we will not hesitate to take appropriate action to address allegations of atrocities and hold those responsible to account,” he said.
“But, as always, the determination of genocide or ethnic cleansing is a deliberate, evidence-based process, and it is not something I can say with any finality here at this podium,” he said.
After a lightning offensive by Azerbaijani forces in September, almost the entire Armenian population fled the self-proclaimed republic of Nagorno-Karabakh, which announced its dissolution on 1er January 2024.
After the end of the Russian Empire, this mountainous region populated mainly by Armenians, who consider it ancestral, became part of Azerbaijan. It unilaterally proclaimed its independence in 1991 after the fall of the Soviet Union, with the support of Armenia.
Nagorno-Karabakh separatists have opposed Baku for more than three decades, notably during two wars between 1988 and 1994 and in the fall of 2020. The international community has never recognized the self-proclaimed republic.