In Nagorno Karabakh, life is returning to normal after the 44-day war between September and November last year that killed 5,000 and created thousands of displaced people and refugees.
But some things are still far from what they used to be in the self-declared Republic of Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh), a territory mostly home to ethnic Armenians that the Soviets allocated to Azerbaijan in 1921. It is recognised as Azerbaijani by the international community.
Soldiers stranded in abandoned military positions, schools housing orphans and the children of refugees, villagers in need of aid and the evident scars of a war that has brought 2,000 Russian peacekeepers to monitor the ceasefire agreed in the middle of the night on 10 November are now part of the landscape in this troubled region.
Armenian soldiers Erik and Vahan pay tribute to a comrade before his grave at the Military Heroes’ Cemetery in Yerevan, Armenia
| The Independent
Much of the Karabakh army has all but abandoned the area. Until recently, journalists could not access these positions, but now the officers have left. Near Martuni, an eastern city of Nagorno-Karabakh, Hamlet and his soldier comrades are delighted to have guests as they wait for word on when they will finally be relieved. Their superiors do not tell them anything, they say. Their only visitors are stray dogs and the boy from the next farm along. In the ditches which serve as their trenches, Hamlet says that many comrades fell under the drones’ shelling. The Armenians had not anticipated that kind of weapon and technology. The ruins of the surrounding buildings are a testament to his words.
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