U.S. State Department report confirms execution of Armenian soldiers by Azerbaijani troops
The U.S. Department of State on Monday released the 2022 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices covering 198 countries and territories around the world, including Armenia.
The report says during last year, there were incidents of violence between Armenia and Azerbaijan that resulted in casualties and detentions.
“There were reports that Azerbaijani forces engaged in unlawful killings, and cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment of Armenian forces in September. Complaints submitted by Armenia and Azerbaijan to the European Court of Human Rights accusing each other of committing atrocities during the fighting in 2020 and 2016 awaited the court’s ruling. Armenia submitted new complaints regarding the September fighting,” the State Department says.
“Following intensive fighting between Azerbaijani and Armenian forces in mid-September, there were credible reports of unlawful killings involving summary executions of Armenian soldiers in Azerbaijani custody.
"On October 2, Azerbaijani social media accounts circulated a video that Human Rights Watch and the investigative journalism group Bellingcat reported appeared to depict the unlawful summary execution of at least seven Armenian soldiers by troops in Azerbaijani military uniform. Human Rights Watch (HRW) and Bellingcat announced respectively on October 14 and October 20 they had verified the video as having been made in mid-September. HRW described the execution as a “war crime for which there needs to be accountability.”
“Another video circulated by social media users beginning on October 11 appeared to depict three Armenian soldiers in the custody of Azerbaijani soldiers on the premises of a military post. The bodies of all three reportedly were later returned to the Armenian government. The Armenian armed forces and Armenian human rights lawyers separately identified the three soldiers,” reads the report.