Armenian prisoners of the Second Nagorno-Karabakh War are servicemen of the Defense Army of the Republic of Artsakh and the Armed Forces of the Republic of Armenia, as well as civilians and other detainees, who surrendered or were forcibly captured by the Azerbaijani Armed Forces during and after the conflict in 2020 between Azerbaijan and the self-proclaimed Republic of Artsakh together with Armenia in the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh and surrounding areas.
Azerbaijani forces inhumanely treated numerous ethnic Armenian military personnel, civilians and other detainees, subjected them to physical abuse, [1] torture, [2] humiliation, [1] enforced disappearance, [3] [4] extrajudicial killing [5] and execution. [6] Intentionally killing civilians, intentionally killing prisoners of war, torture, taking hostages, the granting of no quarter despite surrender are all considered war crimes. [7]
The number of Armenian POWs has remained unknown. [2] They were held in degrading conditions of detention. [5] Despite calls for the immediate release of all Armenian POWs, civilians and other detainees by the EU and international organizations, [8] Azerbaijan has filed criminal charges against them. [9] Armenia filed a case against Azerbaijan at the International Court of Justice in September 2021, and the hearings took place in October 2021 in The Hague. [10]
Renewed hostilities between Azerbaijan and Artsakh together with Armenia began on 27 September 2020. Many territories passed under the control of Azerbaijan during the following six weeks which culminated in the capture of the strategically important town Shusha (known also as Shushi) and prompted the two sides to agree to a ceasefire agreement on 9 November 2020. [11] [12] According to the agreement, both belligerent parties agreed to exchange prisoners of war and the dead. [13]
On 19 March 2021, Human Rights Watch (HRW) reported that Azerbaijani Armed Forces abused Armenian POWs of the Second Nagorno-Karabakh War. Human Rights Watch called on the Azerbaijani authorities to investigate the cases of ill-treatment and bring those responsible to justice. The organization also called on the Azerbaijani side to "immediately release all remaining POWs" and detained civilians and "provide information on the whereabouts" of military personnel and civilians whose status is unknown. [2]
Human Rights Watch also examined more than 20 videos posted on social media of scenes in which Azerbaijani officers clearly mistreat Armenian POWs. [2]
Human Rights Watch interviewed four Armenian POWs who described in detail their mistreatment in detention, as well as the mistreatment of other POWs with whom they were taken prisoner or in the same cell. One of the Armenian POWs said that he was stabbed with a sharp metal rod. In the first days of detention, POWs were given very little water and almost no food. [2]
One of the Armenian POWs, who was 19 years old, said to Human Rights Watch that he was tied up, handcuffed and thrown into the back of the car, face down. an Azerbaijani serviceman burnt his hands with what he described as a "windproof lighter", which was also used to heat up a metal rod and poke him in the back with the rod. the prisoner also told about that effect this abuse had on him and its continuation in the hospital: [2]
Another 20-year-old Armenian POW, who was captured on 20 October 2021 in the Hadrut Province, along with eight other soldiers, was beaten by the Azerbaijani military: [2]
“They started beating us straight away and kept it up for three hours or so. Their commanding officers told them not to. But whenever those officers weren’t around, the beating resumed… They gave a spade to one of ours and told him to go dig his grave. He was so frightened he started digging.”
All three POWs said that they were handcuffed to a radiator and had no mattresses or blankets. They were not given food or water and received no medical attention for their injuries. Azerbaijani officers beat the Armenian POWs with fists, feet and wooden rods.
One of the Armenian POWs said about his detention in Baku that he almost did not sleep there. He would get assaulted and beaten by a group of guards, numbering two to four, as soon as he slept. One of them broke a wooden rod on him, hitting him so badly that he temporarily lost the use of one of his arms. On his fourth day there, he was beaten so badly that two of his ribs broke. [2]
Another 31-year-old Armenian POW detailed their repeated beatings; they were beaten nonstop for one and a half hour, pushed into the ground, punched, and kicked, two or three guards "working" on each of them. once in his cell with another prisoner from his group, guards would come and beat them several times a day. the prisoner stated that they weren't interrogated during their abuse and instead were asked questions like "why did you join fighting". [2]
The four POWs were interrogated by Azerbaijani special services for several weeks. During interrogations, they were all beaten with fists, kicked and hit with truncheons. One of the POWs, Tigran, said that he was twice tortured with electric current. The first time, the torture lasted about 40 minutes, and each time he fainted from pain, he was brought to his senses and given new electric shocks. In the second case, the torture lasted approximately 10 minutes. [2]
The guards went into his cell every day to kick and beat the POWs. Hovhannes said that they were hitting him even in front of the doctor, who changed his bandages, he was beaten every day. [2]
Maral Najarian and her fiancé Viken Euljekjian were captured on 10 November 2020, on their way to Shushi, unaware that the city had been captured by Azerbaijani Armed Forces. According to Maral, they were handcuffed and searched and their phones, car and passports were confiscated. After two hours of detainment, guards began to beat Euljekjian. Later they were moved to a military prison and then to Baku under the pretext of handing them to the Red Cross, only to be moved to another prison, which Najarian believes to be Gobustan Prison. That was the last time Najarian had seen Euljekjian, bruised and with open wounds on his wrists. [14]
Najarian was released on 10 March 2021, through mediation of the International Committee of the Red Cross. [14] while Euljekjian was sentenced to 20 year in prison in Azerbaijan under the pretence of "terrorism". [15]
There are hundreds of videos that depict abuses against Armenian prisoners online, both military and civilian, 35 of whom have been identified through video evidence as of 15 December 2021. [16]
On 15 October 2020, a video surfaced of two captured Armenians being executed by Azerbaijani soldiers; [6] Artsakh authorities identified one as a civilian. [17] Bellingcat analysed the videos and concluded that the footage was real and that both executed were Armenian combatants captured by Azerbaijani forces between 9 and 15 October 2020 and later executed. [6] The BBC also investigated the videos and confirmed that the videos were from Hadrut and were filmed some time between 9–15 October 2020. A probe has been launched by Armenia's human rights defender, Arman Tatoyan, who shared the videos with European Court of Human Rights and who will also show the videos to the UN human rights commissioner, the Council of Europe and other international organizations. [18] The U.N. human rights chief, Michelle Bachelet, stated that "in-depth investigations by media organisations into videos that appeared to show Azerbaijani troops summarily executing two captured Armenians in military uniforms uncovered compelling and deeply disturbing information". [19]
On 10 December, Amnesty International released a report on videos depicting war crimes. In some of these videos, Azerbaijani soldiers were seen decapitating an Armenian soldier as he was alive. In another video, the victim is an older man in civilian clothes who gets his throat cut before the video abruptly ends. [20]
Beheadings of two elderly ethnic Armenian Civilians by Azerbaijani armed forces have been identified by The Guardian. [16]
In December 2020, Armenia and Azerbaijan have begun exchanging groups of prisoners of war mediated by Russia. [22] As of February 2022, 150 prisoners, including civilians, returned to Armenia and Artsakh. [23]
Date | Number of POWs | Mediated by | Ref. |
---|---|---|---|
October 28, 2020 | 1 | Russia | |
December 4, 2020 | 2 | Russia | |
December 9, 2020 | 4 | Russia | |
December 12, 2020 | 2 | Russia | |
December 14, 2020 | 44 | Russia | [24] |
December 15, 2020 | 1 | Russia | [24] |
December 28, 2020 | 4 | Russia | [25] |
January 28, 2021 | 5 | Russia | |
February 9, 2021 | 5 | Russia | |
March 10, 2021 | 1 [b] | ICRC | [14] |
May 4, 2021 | 3 | Russia | |
June 9, 2021 | 1 | Russia | |
June 12, 2021 | 15 [c] | Georgia | [27] |
July 3, 2021 | 15 [d] | Russia | [28] |
September 7, 2021 | 2 | Russia | [28] |
September 9, 2021 | 2 | Russia | |
October 6, 2021 | 1 [e] | Russia | [29] |
October 19, 2021 | 5 | Russia | [30] |
November 26, 2021 | 2 | Russia | |
December 4, 2021 | 10 [f] | Russia | [31] |
December 19, 2021 | 10 | European Union | [32] |
December 29, 2021 | 6 | Hungary | [33] |
February 7, 2022 | 8 | European Union, France | [34] |
According to Armenian authorities, as of April 2021, over 200 Armenian POWs were held captive by Azerbaijan. [35]
On 14 April 2021, a global campaign was launched among the Armenian diaspora to demand the release of Armenian POWs and other detainees held in Azerbaijan. Protests were held in 14 cities around the world, including Toronto, Paris, Rome, Houston, Sacramento, Montréal, New York, Los Angeles, Warsaw, Berlin, Hamburg and Moscow. [36]
In Azerbaijan, the detainees are not considered POWs, they are instead accused of various crimes allegedly committed after the ceasefire agreement was signed. [37]
On 20 May 2021, the European Parliament adopted a resolution urging Azerbaijan to immediately and unconditionally release all the Armenian prisoners, both military and civilian, detained during or after the conflict. [48]
On 1 February 2021, UN human rights experts called on both sides for the prompt release of POWs and other captives. They were also concerned by allegations that POWs and other protected persons have been subjected to extrajudicial killing, enforced disappearance, torture and other ill-treatment. [4]
Secretary General of the Organization of American States Luis Almagro has called for the release of all Armenian prisoners of war. [49] [50]
On 11 May 2021, the human rights organization Freedom House stated it was "deeply concerned by the reports of dehumanizing treatment and abuse, including torture, of Armenians captured and detained by Azerbaijan after the recent armed conflict". [51]
The Nagorno-Karabakh conflict is an ethnic and territorial conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan over the region of Nagorno-Karabakh, inhabited mostly by ethnic Armenians until 2023, and seven surrounding districts, inhabited mostly by Azerbaijanis until their expulsion during the 1990s. The Nagorno-Karabakh region was entirely claimed by and partially controlled by the breakaway Republic of Artsakh, but was recognized internationally as part of Azerbaijan. Azerbaijan gradually re-established control over Nagorno-Karabakh region and the seven surrounding districts.
The region of Nagorno-Karabakh and areas around it are considered to be some of the most heavily mined regions of the former Soviet Union. Mines were laid from the early 1990s by both Azerbaijani and Armenian forces during and after the First Nagorno-Karabakh War. The worst-affected areas are along the fortified former contact line between Azerbaijani and Armenian forces, in particular in the districts of Aghdam, Fuzuli and Jabrayil. According to military experts from both Azerbaijan and Armenia, the ground in those areas is covered with "carpets of land mines." The region has the highest per capita rate in the world of accidents due to unexploded ordnance.
The Maraga massacre was the mass murder of Armenian civilians in the village of Maraga (Maragha) by Azerbaijani troops, which had captured the village on April 10, 1992, in the course of the First Nagorno-Karabakh War. The villagers, including men, women, children and elderly, were killed indiscriminately and deliberately, their houses were pillaged and burnt; the village was destroyed. Amnesty International reports that over 100 women, children and elderly were tortured and killed and a further 53 were taken hostage, 19 of whom were never returned.
Lachin is a town in Azerbaijan and the administrative centre of the Lachin District. It is located within the strategic Lachin corridor, which linked the region of Nagorno-Karabakh with Armenia.
There are no diplomatic relations between Armenia and Azerbaijan. The two neighboring states had formal governmental relations between 1918 and 1921, during their brief independence from the collapsed Russian Empire, as the First Republic of Armenia and the Democratic Republic of Azerbaijan; these relations existed from the period after the Russian Revolution until they were occupied and annexed by the Soviet Union, becoming the constituent republics of Soviet Armenia and Soviet Azerbaijan. Due to the five wars waged by the countries in the past century—one from 1918 to 1921, another from 1988 to 1994, and the most recent in 2016, 2020 and 2023—the two have had strained relations. In the wake of hostilities, social memory of Soviet-era cohabitation is widely repressed through censorship and stigmatization.
Khojaly is a town in the Khojaly District of Azerbaijan, in the region of Nagorno-Karabakh.
Hadrut is a town in the Khojavend District of Azerbaijan, in the region of Nagorno-Karabakh.
Tugh or Togh is a village in the Khojavend District of Azerbaijan, in the region of Nagorno-Karabakh. The village had a mixed Armenian-Azerbaijani population before the First Nagorno-Karabakh War, the Azerbaijani inhabitants fled the fighting in 1991, and the Armenian population fled the village during the 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh war.
Garadaghly or Varanda is a village in the Khojavend District of Azerbaijan, in the region of Nagorno-Karabakh. The village had an Azerbaijani-majority population prior to their expulsion during the First Nagorno-Karabakh War.
The siege of Stepanakert started in late 1991, during the First Nagorno-Karabakh War, in Stepanakert, the largest city in Nagorno-Karabakh, when the Azerbaijani forces circled the city. Until May 1992, the city and its Armenian population were the target of a months-long campaign of bombardment by Azerbaijan. The bombardment of Stepanakert and adjacent Armenian towns and villages, which took place under the conditions of total blockade by Azerbaijan, caused widespread destruction and many civilian deaths.
The political status of Nagorno-Karabakh remained unresolved from its declaration of independence on 10 December 1991 to its September 2023 collapse. During Soviet times, it had been an ethnic Armenian autonomous oblast of the Azerbaijan Soviet Socialist Republic. Following the dissolution of the Soviet Union, a conflict arose between local Armenians who sought to have Nagorno-Karabakh join Armenia and local Azerbaijanis who opposed this.
The Second Nagorno-Karabakh War was an armed conflict in 2020 that took place in the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh and the surrounding occupied territories. It was a major escalation of an unresolved conflict over the region, involving Azerbaijan, Armenia and the self-declared Armenian breakaway state of Artsakh. The war lasted for 44 days and resulted in Azerbaijani victory, with the defeat igniting anti-government protests in Armenia. Post-war skirmishes continued in the region, including substantial clashes in 2022.
2014 Kalbajar incident refers to the crossing of a small group of Azerbaijanis into Kalbajar district, their subsequent capture and conviction for murder and sabotage by the Republic of Artsakh. In July 2014, three ethnic Azerbaijanis crossed Nagorno-Karabakh Line of Contact in to Kalbajar District, then controlled by breakaway Republic of Artsakh forces. This was followed by disappearance of 17-year-old local Smbat Tsakanyan who was later found dead from gunshot wounds and who was last seen walking with the Azerbaijanis in a video used as evidence in the trial. The Azerbaijanis were detained for "reconnaissance operations in the area on orders from Azerbaijan’s intelligence service," as well as kidnapping and killing of Tsakanyan. One of the Azerbaijanis named Hasanov attacked Major Sargis Abrahamyan and his companion Karine Davtyan on the road from Vardenis to Kalbajar, killing the first and wounding the latter, himself subsequently killed in firefight with Artsakh Defence Army servicemen. The Artsakh forces detained and convicted Asgarov and Guliyev for murdering Tsakanyan while Hasanov was posthumously convicted for killing Abrahamyan and wounding Davtyan. Asgarov and Guliyev pleaded not guilty, claiming they had crossed to Kalbajar "to visit their relatives' graves". The incident may have been a trigger of the 2014 Armenian–Azerbaijani clashes in late July and early August that year. After ceasefire agreement ended the 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh war, Armenia returned Asgarov and Guliyev to Azerbaijan, as part of a prisoner exchange.
The bombardment of Stepanakert began on September 27, 2020, the first day of the Second Nagorno-Karabakh War, and lasted throughout the duration of the war. Stepanakert is the capital and largest city of the self-proclaimed Republic of Artsakh, internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan, and was home to 60,000 Armenians on the eve of the war. Throughout the 6-week bombardment, international third parties consistently confirmed evidence of the indiscriminate use of cluster bombs and missiles by Azerbaijan against civilian areas lacking any military installations in Stepanakert; this was denied by Azerbaijan. The prolonged bombardment forced many residents to flee, and the rest to take cover in crowded bomb shelters, leading to a severe outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic in the city, infecting a majority of the remaining residents. Throughout the course of the bombardment, 13 residents were killed, 51 were injured, and 4,258 buildings in the city were damaged.
The casualties of the Second Nagorno-Karabakh War, fought between Armenia, the self-proclaimed Republic of Artsakh internationally recognized as the territory of Azerbaijan and Azerbaijan, officially number in the low thousands. According to official figures released by the belligerents, Armenia and Artsakh lost 3,825 troops, with 187 servicemen missing in action, while Azerbaijan lost 2,906 troops, with 6 missing in action. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported the deaths of 541 Syrian fighters or mercenaries fighting for Azerbaijan. However, it is believed that the sides downplayed the number of their own casualties and exaggerated the numbers of enemy casualties and injuries.
The 2020 shelling of Ghazanchetsots Cathedral took place prior to the Battle of Shusha on 8 October, when the Holy Savior Cathedral of the city of Shusha, known as Ghazanchetsots Cathedral, was struck twice by missiles, resulting in the collapse of a part of the roof. Armenia accused the Azerbaijani Armed Forces over the shelling.
The Barda missile attacks was a series of three air attacks on the city of Barda, as well as the villages of Əyricə and Qarayusifli in the same district, in Azerbaijan during the Second Nagorno-Karabakh War. The attacks involved BM-30 Smerch missiles with cluster warheads, and resulted in 27 civilian deaths.
The 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh ceasefire agreement was an armistice agreement that ended the Second Nagorno-Karabakh War. It was signed on 9 November by the President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev, the Prime Minister of Armenia Nikol Pashinyan and the President of Russia Vladimir Putin, and ended all hostilities in the Nagorno-Karabakh region from 00:00, on 10 November 2020 Moscow time. The president of the self-declared Republic of Artsakh, Arayik Harutyunyan, also agreed to an end of hostilities.
The bombardment of Martuni was the bombardment of the cities, towns, and villages in the Martuni Province of the self-proclaimed Republic of Artsakh, which is de jure a part of Azerbaijan. It was carried out by Azerbaijani Armed Forces during the Second Nagorno-Karabakh War. The city Martuni, along with the de facto capital Stepanakert, were badly damaged as a result of shelling. The shelling resulted in the deaths of five civilians. 1,203 buildings were damaged in the province as a result of the bombardment, according to Artsakh Urban Development Ministry. Victoria Gevorgyan, a resident of the Martuni Province of Nagorno-Karabakh, became the first child killed on the first day of the war.
Amnesty International stated that both Azerbaijani and Armenian forces committed war crimes during Second Nagorno-Karabakh War, and called on the governments of Armenia and Azerbaijan to immediately conduct independent, impartial investigations, identify all those responsible, and bring them to justice. UN Secretary-General António Guterres stated that "indiscriminate attacks on populated areas anywhere, including in Stepanakert, Ganja and other localities in and around the immediate Nagorno-Karabakh zone of conflict, were totally unacceptable". Columbia University's Institute for the Study of Human Rights recognized that violent conflict affected all sides in the conflict but distinguished "the collateral damage of Azerbaijanis" from "the policy of atrocities such as mutilations and beheadings committed by Azerbaijani forces and their proxies in Artsakh." Azerbaijan started an investigation on war crimes by Azerbaijani servicemen in November and as of 14 December 2020, has arrested four of its servicemen.