One Week After Azerbaijan Attack... 30,000 Armenians Massively Flee

Gas Station Explosion Damage Spreads

Since Azerbaijan took control of the Nagorno-Karabakh region, a disputed territory with Armenia, up to 30,000 ethnic Armenian residents have fled. It has been only a week since Azerbaijan, an oil-producing country on the Caspian Sea coast, attacked the Nagorno-Karabakh region, which is officially part of its territory but predominantly inhabited by ethnic Armenians from the neighboring country, and effectively seized control.

According to TASS news agency and others on the 26th (local time), 28,120 Armenians who left Nagorno-Karabakh have entered Armenia. The number of refugees accounts for about one-quarter of the total ethnic Armenian population (120,000) living in Nagorno-Karabakh. The number of refugees surged from 1,850 at 1 a.m. the previous day to 6,500 by the evening, and has now rapidly increased to 30,000.

The residents, carrying only their belongings, barely managed to board trucks and buses amid chaos, and foreign media reported that the roads leading to Armenia were congested with a long line of vehicles carrying migrants.

During the evacuation, a fuel tank at a gas station exploded while refueling vehicles, adding to the confusion at the scene. The explosion occurred the previous day at a gas station on the outskirts of Stepanakert, the central city of Nagorno-Karabakh. The fuel tank explosion reportedly caused significant damage to vehicles that were being refueled while carrying migrants.

Armenians living in Nagorno-Karabakh, a disputed area with Azerbaijan, are riding in the back of trucks heading to the Syunik region of Armenia on the 26th (local time).
[Image source=AP Yonhap News]

Immediately after the explosion, local sources reported dozens of injuries, but the scale of the damage appears to be rapidly increasing. Russian Interfax news agency cited an Armenian health ministry official reporting that the death toll from the accident reached 125 by the afternoon. On the day following the accident, the ethnic Armenian self-governing authority stated that more than 20 people died in the explosion and about 290 injured were hospitalized, but the death toll surged within a few hours.

Nagorno-Karabakh is a region where ethnic Armenians have formed a self-governing authority and operated a military force. Since it is internationally recognized as Azerbaijani territory, armed clashes have continued between Azerbaijan, which seeks to control the area, and the self-governing authority. On the 19th, Azerbaijan bombarded military facilities of the self-governing forces in Nagorno-Karabakh, after which the self-governing authority agreed to a ceasefire. This is seen as a situation where the self-governing forces have effectively surrendered to Azerbaijan, which carried out the airstrikes.

Azerbaijan is negotiating with a proposal to disarm the self-governing forces' military while guaranteeing the safety of local residents. However, ethnic Armenian residents are entering Armenia en masse amid concerns that Azerbaijan’s plan to pursue "regional reintegration" in Nagorno-Karabakh will effectively lead to disadvantages, retaliation, and discrimination against ethnic Armenians.

Reports have also emerged that while the Azerbaijani government is allowing ethnic Armenian residents to flee, it is screening out those who participated in the armed conflict from the migration flow. AFP news agency reported that Azerbaijani authorities have installed cameras at checkpoints on the Lachin corridor connecting Nagorno-Karabakh and Armenia to verify the identities of refugees. Children, elderly, and women are excluded from identity checks, with men in their 20s and 30s primarily subject to verification, the agency reported.

An Azerbaijani government official told the news agency, "We plan to pardon ethnic Armenians who participated in the armed conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh if they disarm, but before that, they must be handed over to us."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.