The International Committee of the Red Cross was able to send trucks of basic necessities to the region, a first since the blitzkrieg launched by Azerbaijan on Tuesday September 19.
The white trucks bearing the logo of the International Committee of the Red Cross pass one behind the other along the Latchin corridor. The Kornidzor border crossing opens. This is the first humanitarian aid convoy to be able to travel from Armenia to Nagorno-Karabakh, since the blitzkrieg launched by Azerbaijan on Tuesday, September 19, and the capitulation of the Armenian separatists in the region who This followed three days later.
This is a “convoy of around 70 tonnes of mainly humanitarian aid”specifies Zara Amatuni, one of the ICRC officials who accompanied him to the border, held by the Azeris. “There is wheat flour, sunflower oil, salt, and yeast for civilian populations in need.”
Some injured evacuated to hospitals
Several towns and villages in Nagorno-Karabakh were bombed. At least 200 people died and 400 injured according to Armenian separatists. “We also work for people who need to be evacuated, because they have been injured, or are vulnerable”continues Zara Amatuni. “We were already able to evacuate some of them to local hospitals, to which we also provided medical aid. They were injured and in urgent need of care. We managed to evacuate nine of them on Friday and seventeen on Saturday. “
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The border remained closed for frightened civilians wanting to flee Nagorno-Karabakh towards Armenia, those who hid in their cellars during the bombings, those who have been starving for more than nine months – Yerevan accuses Baku of blocking the single route directly linking Armenia to Nagorno-Karabakh, with the aim of causing shortages in the disputed enclave – and do not envisage coming under the yoke of Azerbaijan. But since Sunday September 24, early in the afternoon, a first group of refugees entered Armenia, suggesting that the border is now open to civilians.
A health center not far from the border
The Armenian government says it is ready to receive several tens of thousands of families. In Goris, the first town in the Latchin corridor on the Armenian side, Médecins du Monde is establishing a care center. “In terms of need, it is very complicated because these populations have not had full access to food for nine months, especially to healthcare”explains Valentin Mahou-Hekinian, the NGO coordinator for the South Caucasus. “The residents are very confused. They are afraid, they are still at home, in their cellars or in bunkers, waiting for instructions. Our angle is really psychological support for these people who will arrive soon.”
For the NGOs, the populations and Yerevan, beyond the aid convoys, the primary urgency is to open a corridor to evacuate the populations of Nagorno-Karabakh.