Your trusted source

Azerbaijan is destroying not only Armenian cemeteries in Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh), but also any evidence of them, Artsakh’s State Service for the Protection of Historical Environment warns.

"History is repeating itself, vandals are destroying not only cemeteries, but also any evidence of their existence. A Turk remains a Turk and does his own thing; the vandals have now targeted a cross-stone in Ivanyan,” it said in a social media post on Wednesday.

“When Khojaly was repopulated during the Armenian-Tatar/Azerbaijani clashes in 1920, its western part was settled by Armenians who had survived the great massacre in Berdadzor, Shushi, and the eastern part by Azerbaijanis who had fled from Yeghegnadzor (Daralagyaz) and Sisian. These two parts lived separately, but were called the same – Khojaly – and were governed by a single village council headed by Hovsep Avagyan and Bakhshi Sargsyan ("Soviet Karabakh", 24.10.1990).

“The south-western part of Khojaly had a small Armenian cemetery (25-30 tombstones) where Armenians who moved here from Berdadzor were buried. According to eyewitnesses, during the Artsakh movement, when Armenians were forced to flee their homes again, Azerbaijanis destroyed the Armenian cemetery and threw the tombstones into the nearby ravine. Ishkhan Sargsyan, the great-grandson of Bakhshi Sargsyan, had erected a memorial cross-stone in the area of the cemetery, where his other relatives were also buried," reads the report.