An incessant flow: Nearly half of Nagorno-Karabakh’s population has fled the Caucasus region since Azerbaijan’s blitzkrieg offensive last week, which abruptly ended Armenian separatists’ dreams of independence.
There are now 50,243 people who have taken refuge in Armenia, according to new figures communicated Wednesday by Yerevan, following the military operation which left more than 400 dead in both camps.
To add to the torments of the enclave, more than 100 people are still missing after the explosion of a fuel depot stormed by residents on Monday evening in the midst of an exodus. The tragedy left 68 dead and 290 injured.
Azerbaijan had opened the day before the only road linking Nagorno-Karabakh to Armenia, four days after the capitulation of the separatists and a ceasefire agreement which places the region of around 120,000 under the control of Baku. inhabitants, mainly populated by Armenians.
The authorities have pledged to allow rebels who surrender their weapons to leave. However, they arrested businessman Ruben Vardanyan, who led the enclave’s separatist government from November 2022 to February 2023, on Wednesday as he tried to reach Armenia.
Humanitarian crisis
On the other side of the border, chaos reigns. First stop for most, the town of Goris is unrecognizable.
Hundreds of cars clutter its streets in the greatest chaos, under the eyes of police officers powerless to direct them. Helicopters fly over the area.
Many hungry refugees spent the night in their vehicles and emerged with eyes red with fatigue, many saying they had no place to sleep or anywhere to go in Armenia.
Alekhan Hambardzyumyan, 72, slept in his utility van. It shows the traces of shell impact on the bodywork.
The retiree, with gold teeth and a faded jacket in the colors of an American baseball team, narrowly escaped a bombing by going to look for his brother, wounded at the front on September 20.
His son died in the latest fighting which left 213 dead on the side of the Armenian separatists. Baku, for its part, indicated that it had lost 192 of its soldiers and one civilian in the military operation.
“I want to go to Yerevan, but I don’t know what the state can offer me,” he explains to AFP.
Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian said he was ready to welcome 40,000 refugees into the country of 2.9 million inhabitants.
But the government has so far only been able to accommodate 2,850 people, which suggests a humanitarian crisis.
“Armenia lacks the resources to manage the refugee crisis and will not be able to do so without help from abroad,” said political analyst Boris Navasardyan, interviewed by AFP. According to him, this situation “will have serious repercussions on the political scene” against a backdrop of “generalized discontent”.
The capital Yerevan has been shaken in recent days by a series of demonstrations against a prime minister accused of passivity towards Azerbaijan.
“I decided to act”
Nikol Pashinian also has to deal with Russia, which has a large military base in Armenia and sees the Caucasus as its backyard even if its influence has been reduced since the launch of the offensive in Ukraine.
The Armenian leader also implicitly criticized Moscow for its lack of support, describing his country’s current alliances as “ineffective”, particularly with Russia, which the Kremlin contested.
On the ground, civil society is organizing without waiting for the State.
The small town of Goris is not its first exodus: it has already welcomed refugees during the previous Nagorno-Karabakh wars between the two former Soviet republics, Armenia with a Christian majority, and Azerbaijan with a Muslim majority .
In front of her house, Liana Sakhakyan has set up a table and cakes.
“The important thing is not just the food: it’s the welcome, a warm atmosphere,” she confides. “When I saw so many people arriving yesterday, I decided to act.”
To those who decided to stay there, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev promised that the rights of Armenians in the enclave, annexed to Azerbaijan in 1921, would be “guaranteed”.
After the call to protect civilians launched Tuesday by the head of American diplomacy Antony Blinken, his German counterpart Annalena Baerbock urged Baku to allow international observers to enter the enclave.
“The children, women and men of Nagorno-Karabakh must be able to remain in their homes and in their homeland in peace and dignity,” she insisted.