While the world’s attention is focused on Ukraine, another humanitarian crisis on the edge of Europe is unfolding due to an oil-rich dictatorship: the starvation of Nagorno-Karabakh by Azerbaijan.
It is here, in this enclave of 120,000 ethnic Armenians, that one of the worst crises in the wider European neighbourhood is taking place. Under siege for more than eight months, the Armenian population of Nagorno-Karabakh has now been reduced to starvation rations – for most families, just a piece of bread a day – as Azerbaijan seeks to force the population into submission.
Nestled in the South Caucasus, the breakaway region of Nagorno-Karabakh has been the subject of conflict for more than 30 years. As the Soviet Union collapsed, the overwhelmingly ethnic Armenian population’s demand for unification with neighbouring Armenia was met with pogroms and eventually war by Azerbaijan.
While Armenia triumphed in the first war in the early 1990s, Azerbaijan returned in 2020, winning a victory that gave it control of much of the land Armenians had held. The remainder of Karabakh has since led a tenuous existence, connected to Armenia and the outside world by just a single road, the Lachin corridor, ostensibly protected and guaranteed by Russian peacekeepers.
Last December, Azerbaijan put an end to that. Government-organised protesters deployed on the Lachin road, blocking all traffic except for a handful of Red Cross vehicles with humanitarian aid. On 15 June, Azerbaijan cut even that, closing the road entirely via their newly established checkpoint. Since then, not a single shipment of food or medicine has entered Nagorno-Karabakh.
The situation has now become critical. Deaths from starvation have been recorded – the region’s health ministry announced that one-third of all deaths in the territory are the result of malnutrition owing to the blockade. With no fuel available, the meagre crops available can rarely be transported to the capital Stepanakert or the other population centres, not that they can easily be harvested: Azerbaijani soldiers regularly fire at Karabakh Armenian farmers in their fields.
International organisations and actors have long been in agreement that the present crisis is entirely of Azerbaijan’s making. In February, the International Court of Justice issued a ruling demanding that Azerbaijan open the road and restore the free movement of people and goods along the road. The US, EU, Canada and others have regularly urged Azerbaijan to open the road and lift the blockade. Baku remains obstinate, not only ignoring the demands but insisting, farcically, that the road is open, there is no starvation in Karabakh, and that one international statement after another is simply the result of “pro-Armenian corruption”.
More and more observers are now going further, declaring that the actions of Azerbaijan, directed by President Ilham Aliyev, constitute genocide. In August, Luis Moreno Ocampo, the former chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, stated in a report that there is “reasonable basis to believe that genocide is being committed against Armenians” in Nagorno-Karabakh. “There are no crematories and there are no machete attacks…starvation is the invisible genocide weapon,” Mr Ocampo wrote. The Lemkin Institute for Genocide Prevention similarly called the blockade “genocidal in its intent, which is to eliminate the Armenian population of Artsakh [Nagorno-Karabakh]”.
One actor conspicuous in its inaction across the entirety of this drama is Russia. Moscow was the third signatory to the November 2020 deal that ended the Second Karabakh War. While its 2,000 peacekeepers were tasked with maintaining the peace and keeping control of the Lachin road, they have stood idly by as Azerbaijani troops enact their blockade. Sapped and distracted by its increasingly difficult war in Ukraine, Russia has lost almost all influence in a region it had long been the most powerful actor in.
In this environment, there are also few hopes for any peace treaty between Armenia and Azerbaijan. The two sides have met regularly for US- and EU-brokered intensive talks over the past year, with mediators from Washington and Brussels regularly expressing confidence in the progress and stating that peace is within reach. Yet far from any conciliatory measures, Azerbaijan has only tightened its blockade of Karabakh Armenians in this period, bringing them closer to their physical destruction.
Most glaring is the fact that Azerbaijan has already openly ignored the terms of the ceasefire it signed with Armenia not even three years ago, by which it agreed to ensure the free usage of the Lachin corridor. If Baku so openly breaks its word here, what will stop it from simply doing the same in another treaty?
It is clear that the present situation cannot continue for long. The population of Karabakh continues to grow weaker; as winter approaches, their chances of surviving it under current conditions seem negligible. International pressure is growing sharply on Azerbaijan to lift the blockade, but it is similarly evident that only tangible actions, not mere words, by the international community can possibly compel Baku to halt its genocidal path. One way or another, the fate of the Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh will soon become clear.
https://inews.co.uk/news/world/armenia-families-starve-azerbaijan-genocidal-blockade-nagorno-karabakh-2593573
