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Recently, the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) ruled on the case "Sargsyan against Azerbaijan." Minas Sarkisian, a displaced ethnic Armenian from the village of Gulistan in Shahumyan district, lodged the case at the European court in 2006. He died in 2009 at the age of 80 without ever being allowed to return to his home there, RFE/RL reports.

The article reads that Sarkisian's house and 2,000 square meters of farmland lies on the river that has served as a volatile front line between Azerbaijani and Armenian military forces since a 1994 cease-fire deal was brokered in the frozen conflict by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE). After Sarkisian's death, the court case was continued by his son, Vladimir Sarkisian, who has been living with his family in the town of Yeghvard near Yerevan ever since they fled an advance into Gulistan by Azerbaijani military forces in 1992.

Sarkisian told RFE/RL's Armenian Service that the financial compensation the European court ordered Azerbaijan's government to pay is not the most important aspect of the June 16 ruling. "What is important is that we have won the case," he said. "I don't know how things will be in the future. But this process is praiseworthy. I don't want anyone to experience what we did."
The article notes that before the war, the Shahumyan district was predominantly populated by ethnic Armenians. A military assault into the Shahumyan region by Azerbaijani forces forced Sarkisian's family and other ethnic Armenians to flee.
Sarkisian told RFE/RL that he watched his village being destroyed by the Azerbaijani rockets and direct fire from tanks. He says nothing remains intact in Gulistan today.

According to the report, the European court rejected Azerbaijan's argument that Sarkisian and other ethnic Armenian civilians were being prevented from returning to the region solely out of concern for their safety. It said Azerbaijan was obliged to compensate ethnic Armenians who were displaced from territory under its control and to create easily accessible property claims mechanisms for all displaced civilians in a similar situation.

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