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Nagorno-Karabakh: UN urged to push for access as humanitarian crisis deepens [1]

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Date: 2023-09

The United Nations and other international humanitarian organisations should “push harder” for access to the blockaded ethnic Armenian enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh, experts and sources in the region have told openDemocracy.

Thousands of ethnic Armenian residents of the region are currently fleeing their homes for Armenia itself following Azerbaijan’s military offensive to take control of the region last week. At least 200 people were killed and more than 400 wounded in 24 hours of fierce fighting, according to Nagorno-Karabakh officials. A Russia-brokered ceasefire, essentially seen as surrender of Karabakh’s local defence army, is currently in place.

A source with expertise in human rights in the South Caucasus who wished to remain anonymous told openDemocracy that the “UN is very reluctant to push for access” for humanitarian assistance, but that UN agencies could gain access if they were “bolder”.

Given Azerbaijan’s near-total control of Nagorno-Karabakh, the source said, the UN could also send a monitoring mission to observe “how the rights of ethnic Armenians are protected” under Azerbaijani rule.

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Larisa Hovhannisyan, CEO of Teach For Armenia – an educational non-profit that has a branch in Nagorno-Karabakh – told openDemocracy that Nagorno-Karabakh residents “have neither the resources nor the bandwidth” to report on the humanitarian crisis, or to collect evidence of alleged violence committed by Azerbaijani forces against civilians.

“Our people there are exhausted and on the brink of starvation and death,” said Hovhannisyan, who said that several of her pupils had been killed during the offensive.

Nagorno-Karabakh is internationally recognised as Azerbaijani territory, but has been under the control of an unrecognised Armenian government since the 1990s. The mid-September assault marked the culmination of a nearly ten-month humanitarian blockade of the region by Azerbaijan, which left residents with very limited access to fuel, food and medicine.

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[1] Url: https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/odr/nagorno-karabakh-armenia-azerbaijan-blockade-humanitarian-aid-united-nations-red-cross/

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