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In the spring of 1991, the Azeri-Turks embarked on a new type of offensive against the Armenians living in the Autonomous Region of Nagorno Karabakh and in the Shaumyan district to the north. It was called ‘Operation Ring’, writes Baroness Caroline Cox in her book “Ethnic Cleansing in Progress: War in Nagorno Karabakh” written together with John Eibner.

“Operation Ring’ started in late April 1991 with the villages of Getashen and Martunashen. The operations, carried out against vulnerable villagers, were remarkable for their ferocity. The pattern established in Getashen and Martunashen was later repeated against other villages in the Shaumyan district and elsewhere in Nagorno Karabakh,” the book reads. “Internal troops subordinated to the Soviet MVD (Interior Ministry) have conducted actions coordinated with Azerbaijani OMON forcibly to deport entire villages, often brutalizing civilians, including women, children, and elderly persons,” writes Caroline Cox. Credible and compelling evidence was found that additional deportations and related abuses were planned by Azerbaijani and Soviet authorities and were imminent unless immediate action is taken to prevent them.

The Armenian villagers were driven off their land. They were assaulted and killed; women were raped, children maltreated; civilians abducted as hostages. Azeri-Turk citizens from nearby villages would come with pick-up trucks and cars, looting, pillaging and stealing everything from household goods to livestock.

Gross violation of internationally guaranteed human rights were found during the operation, the authors of the book write. “e.g. eye-witness accounts of a man shot in the throat 30 times in front of his pregnant wife whom he was trying to defend from a beating,” the authors write.

According to a woman, a paralyzed, bed-ridden elderly man shot in the legs in front of his elderly wife, who was forced to leave him behind. In the presence of Soviet soldiers, a frail elderly woman (whom we met), forced at gun point to stand in a barrel and beaten on the head, was asked to identify ‘bandits’ and threatened with decapitation.

“Hundreds of villagers were forced at gun point to leave all their belongings and sign letters of ‘voluntary’ consent to deportation. One whole village was deported at night and the people left over the border in the pouring rain at midnight with no possessions,” the book says.

Cox and Eibner bring some more examples. 2 doctors sent to provide medical care who were abducted, imprisoned and beaten daily. There is photographic evidence of maltreatment.

Baroness notes that officials justified current deportations and were unwilling to exclude future deportations of Armenians from Nagorno Karabakh. “The aim of this policy of deportation is to make Armenian authorities abolish a decree adopted by the Supreme Soviet of Armenia according to which ‘Armenia agrees to incorporate the Autonomous Region of Nagorno Karabakh at the request of the latter’,” the baroness writes.

According to her no official with whom they met denied the possibility that Azerbaijani OMON forces were engaged in atrocities, including killing, looting and banditry, and brutality and violence directed against women, children, and the elderly.

According to the evidence of an elderly woman Agopion Yevgagna, On May 15, 1991 helicopters came to her village. On May 15, 1991 helicopters came to her village. There were only 11 villagers present hey made the Armenians stand together pair by pair and then changed pairs so that husband and wife and mother and son were no longer standing together. They then shot dead two of the women and two men including Mrs. Agopion’s husband. When she and other survivors went to pick up the bodies, two more villagers were shot dead. Mrs. Agopion broke down and said she now had no husband and no property. She could not return to her village.

The “Operation Ring” was carried out by Soviet troops and OMON units of Azerbaijan. The operation began on 30 April 1991. It continued until August 20, 1991. During the "Operation Ring" population of 27 Armenian villages in Artsakh were deported, part of the villages is still under the occupation of Azerbaijan. All the villages have been looted, some of them were burned and razed to the ground, farms, houses and property assigned to the robbers. About 100 people from the Armenian population were killed, nearly 10,000 Armenians of Artsakh were deported, more than 600 were held as hostage, tortured and abused, the fate of some of them is still unknown.