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    Categories: 2021

Nagorno-Karabakh: A Humanitarian Perspective

ICC urges the international humanitarian and religious freedom community to further investigate this situation. Awareness, assistance, and advocacy are the three greatest needs. ICC makes the following humanitarian observations:

  • International, third-party access is a crucial ongoing need, in large part because the conflict continues despite the November 9th ceasefire statement.
  • International recognition of the religious freedom components of this war is an immediate necessity.
  • Peacekeepers are not police. They inherently cannot and are not those responsible for responding to kidnappings, shootings into Artsakh from conquered territories, and other types of criminal activity. These activities remain ongoing.
  • Artsakh’s residents remain under threat to their physical integrity, which has created an absence of safety and stabilization that ensures that the consequences of the war are ongoing.
  • Humanitarian needs are immediate and ever-growing. Current solutions are not long-term, and require the presence of multiple humanitarian groups working in coordination to address key assistance issues.
  • Azerbaijan and Turkey’s seizure and presumed destruction of personal properties includes that of personal identification papers for displaced persons, further isolating them from humanitarian solutions.
  • Relocation to permanent housing and livelihood development are essential humanitarian needs. This includes vocational training, as several IDPs come from a “white collar” background that is not likely to be reestablished quickly.
Emil Lazarian: “I should like to see any power of the world destroy this race, this small tribe of unimportant people, whose wars have all been fought and lost, whose structures have crumbled, literature is unread, music is unheard, and prayers are no more answered. Go ahead, destroy Armenia . See if you can do it. Send them into the desert without bread or water. Burn their homes and churches. Then see if they will not laugh, sing and pray again. For when two of them meet anywhere in the world, see if they will not create a New Armenia.” - WS