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In the Armenian Apostolic Church of St. John the Baptist ("St. Hovhannes Mkrtich") in Paris, a liturgy was served in memory of victims of the Sumgait pogroms in Azerbaijan, that followed the Artsakh Movement. As the press and information department of the MFA reports representatives of Armenian embassy to France, NKR, Armenian institutions in France and members of Armenian community were present at the ceremony.

After the liturgy rally to the park of Yerevan in Paris has been organized for the memory of the victims headed by Vigen Chitechyan, Armenian ambassador to France, Hovhannes Gevorgyan the representative of Nagorno Karabakh and Ara Toranyan and Murad Papazyan, the Coordinating Council of the Armenian Organizations of France Ara Toranian and Murad Papazian, where they have laid wreath in front of the Komitas statue in memory of victims of Sumgait pogroms.

In the same time liturgies have been served in Armenian Apostolic Churches in dozens of cities of France.

On 26-29 February 1988 in terms of actual complicity of local authorities and inaction of the USSR government mass pogroms of civilians were organized in Sumgait city of Azerbaijani SSR, accompanied with unprecedented brutal murders, violence and pillaging against the Armenian population of the city. Armenian pogroms in Sumgait were carefully organized. At the meetings, which began on February 26 in the central square, city leaders openly called for violence against the Armenians.

On February 27 protests which were attended by hundreds of rioters turned into violence. Armed with axes, knives, specially sharpened rebar, rocks and cans of gasoline and with the pre-compiled lists of apartments where Armenians lived the rioters broke into the houses, turning everything upside down there and killing the owners. In the same time, people were often taken out to the streets or to the courtyard for jeering at them publicly. After painful humiliations and torture the victims were doused with gasoline and burnt alive.

On February 29 army troops entered Sumgait but without an order to intervene. Only in the evening, when the mad crowd began to attack the soldiers the military units took up decisive steps.

The exact number of victims of Sumgait pogroms is still unknown. According to official data, 32 people were killed; however there is ample evidence that several hundred Armenians have been killed in the city in three days. There is also evidence that the riots were coordinated by KGB in Azerbaijan. Executioners of Sumgait were subsequently declared as national heroes of Azerbaijan.