Faced with the exodus of the population in Nagorno-Karabakh, the UN announces the sending of a humanitarian mission to the region

Work to assess humanitarian needs on site. The UN will send a mission to Nagorno-Karabakh, announced its spokesperson, Stéphane Dujarric, Friday September 29. “The government of Azerbaijan and the UN have agreed on a mission to the region. The mission will take place this weekend”, did he declare. The United Nations spokesperson clarified that the organization had not had access to this region “for about 30 years.”

The team, of around ten people, will be led by officials from the UN Office of Humanitarian Affairs. These latter will “seek to assess the situation on the ground and identify humanitarian needs, both for people who remain and those who are on the move”.

“We must remember the need for everyone to respect international law, particularly regarding human rights”added Stéphane Dujarric, noting however that no representative of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights would participate in this first mission.

More than three quarters of residents have fled

Stéphane Dujarric also explained that the UN was working with the Armenian government to deal with the influx of refugees crossing the border. The exodus of Armenians from the Nagorno-Karabakh enclave towards Armenia continued on Friday, the day after the announcement of the spectacular dissolution of the self-proclaimed separatist republic, a week after a victorious offensive by Azerbaijan.

In a few days, 93,000 people, or more than three quarters of the 120,000 official inhabitants of Nagorno-Karabakh, left their homes, according to a latest count by the Armenian authorities. The population fears reprisals. This predominantly Christian region, which seceded from predominantly Muslim Azerbaijan following the disintegration of the USSR, was in fact opposed to Baku for more than three decades.