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Artsakh’s Human Rights Defender (Ombudsman) Gegham Stepanyan on Monday issued the following statement on the eviction of Armenians from the Shahumyan region by Azerbaijan in 1992:

"30 years ago, as a result of repressions, attacks and criminal acts by Azerbaijan, 20,000 people of the Shahumyan region of the Artsakh Republic were deported and  ousted from their homeland, more than 700 people were killed and disappeared, historical Armenian communities were emptied of Armenians and looted, the Armenian religious and cultural values of region were vandalized and destroyed.

“The houses of the Armenians were divided, and the “new masters” from Azerbaijan wrote their names on the gates with oil. The church was desecrated and turned into a sheep pen. The cross was broken, the bell was smashed with a rifle shot, and the fragments were scattered back and forth,” eyewitnesses say.

The crimes committed against the people of Shahumyan were an act of "punishment" for their free will, the realization of their right to live independently and with dignity in their homeland.

The issue of justice for the people of Shahumyan, deprived of their homeland on the basis of ethnic-religious affiliation and the restoration of their violated rights, was not clearly set on the agenda, the Azerbaijani authorities were not held accountable for the crimes committed against them. Moreover, this impunity continues to breed new crimes, which we witnessed during the Azerbaijani aggression unleashed against the people of Artsakh in April 2016 and September 2020, and continue to witness after the November 9 trilateral statement on the ceasefire.

The international community continues to show condemnable indifference to what is happening, which does not follow from the principle of the universality of the protection of human rights."