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Azerbaijani vandals continue to destroy memorials and monuments to fallen heroes in Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh) which was ethnically cleansed of its indigenous Armenian population in September 2023, Cultural Ombudsman of Hayk Hovik Avanesov warns.

"The memorial complex commemorating freedom fighters who fell in the Artsakh Liberation War in the village of Getavan in the Martakert district has become yet another victim of the cultural genocide committed by Azerbaijan,” he posted on Facebook on Sunday.

The memorial was inaugurated on 7 September 2016.

Avanesov highlights that Article 4 of the 1954 Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict prohibits any form of theft, pillage or misappropriation of, and any acts of vandalism directed against, cultural property.

Furthermore, the first Hague Protocol of 1954 explicitly forbids the destruction of cultural or spiritual values in occupied territories.