Agdaban massacre
| Aghdaban massacre | |
|---|---|
  | |
| Location | Lua error in Module:WikidataIB at line 665: attempt to index field 'wikibase' (a nil value). |
| Coordinates | 40°11′35″N 46°21′11″E / 40.19306°N 46.35306°ECoordinates: 40°11′35″N 46°21′11″E / 40.19306°N 46.35306°E ⧼validator-fatal-error⧽ |
| Date | Lua error in Module:WikidataIB at line 665: attempt to index field 'wikibase' (a nil value). |
| Target | Local Azerbaijani population |
Attack type | Massacre |
| Deaths | 30+ killed |
Non-fatal injuries | Hundreds |
| Perpetrators | Armenian Armed Forces |
| Motive | Anti-Azerbaijanism |
The Aghdaban massacre, or the Aghdaban tragedy (Azerbaijani: Ағдабан фаҹиәси/Ağdaban faciəsi), was the mass murder of Azerbaijani civilians in Aghdaban, located in the Kalbajar District of Azerbaijan, by the Armenian forces, which had occupied the village on 8 April 1992, in the course of the First Nagorno-Karabakh War. The Armenian forces killed the villagers and completely destroyed the village. During the massacre, more than 30 Azerbaijani civilians were killed, while hundreds were taken captive and then tortured. The massacre of Azerbaijanis in Aghdaban was one of the several anti-Azerbaijani massacres committed during the war, with the Khojaly massacre being most notable among them.
Background[edit]
Aghdaban is a village located in the Kalbajar District, a mountainous region within Azerbaijan,[1] which lies outside of the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast (NKAO), and was mostly populated by ethnic Azerbaijanis and Kurds.[2][3] It is located on the right ridge of the namesake river, and on the slopes of Mount Aghdaban of Murov range.[4] The village is 56 kilometres (35 mi) north-east of Kalbajar, the district's administrative centre. It was founded circa 1900 by noble bey families who had moved there from Kalbajar to establish their estates. Before the war, the village had a population of 779 people, virtually all of whom were ethnic Azerbaijanis.[5]
During the Soviet era, an autonomous oblast within the Azerbaijani SSR governed the predominantly Armenian-populated region of Nagorno-Karabakh.[6] As the Soviet Union began to disintegrate during the late 1980s, the question of the region's status re-emerged, and on 20 February 1988, the parliament of the NKAO passed a resolution requesting transfer of the oblast from the Azerbaijani SSR to the Armenian SSR. Azerbaijan rejected the request several times,[7] and ethnic violence began shortly after with a series of pogroms between 1988 and 1990 against Armenians in Sumgait, Ganja and Baku,[8][9][10][11] and against Azerbaijanis in Gugark[12][13][14] and Stepanakert.[15] Following the revocation of Nagorno-Karabakh's autonomous status, an independence referendum was held in the region on 10 December 1991. The Azerbaijani population, which then constituted around 22.8% of the region's population boycotted the referendum. 99.8% of participants voted in favour. In early 1992, following the Soviet Union's collapse, the region descended into outright war.[7]
Prelude[edit]
The Armenian forces launched an offensive on 18 May 1992 to take the city of Lachin,[16] thus seizing control of the narrow, mountainous Lachin corridor,[17] a key road connecting Goris in Syunik Province, southern Armenia, to Stepanakert, the regional capital for the Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh;[18] the only other major road connecting Armenia to Nagorno-Karabakh passses through the Murov range.[19] The city itself was poorly guarded and, within the next day, the Armenian forces took control of the city.[16] Following the city's capture by the Armenian forces, it was burned down and all of its original Azerbaijani and Kurdish of 7,800 people became refugees as a result of forceful deportations.[20][21]
Massacre[edit]
On 8 April 1992, after taking control of Lachin, the Armenian forces launched an attack on Aghdaban. They completely burned down the village, and massacred more than 30 Azerbaijani civilians. The Armenian forces also took hundreds of Azerbaijanis as captives and tortured them.[22] According to the Azerbaijani sources, the Armenian forces also looted and destroyed historical and cultural monuments, as well as Muslim shrines and cemeteries in the village.[23]
Aftermath[edit]
The massacre of Azerbaijanis in Aghdaban was one of the several anti-Azerbaijani massacres committed during the war, following the massacres in Baganis Ayrum, Gushchular and Malibeyli,[24] Garadaghly,[25] and Khojaly.[26]
The Armenian forces attacked Agdaban in March 1993,[27] and fully occupied the region in April, gaining control of the highest peak in the whole Karabakh, Mount Murovdagh.[28] The Armenian advancement in Kalbajar was conducted with numerous violations of the rules of war, including forcible exodus of civilian population, indiscriminate fire and hostage-taking. During the offensive, over 500 Azerbaijani civilians were killed, and more than 60 thousand Azerbaijanis were displaced.[22][29] On 30 April, the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) passed Resolution 822, demanding the immediate cessation of all hostilities and the withdrawal of all occupying forces from Kalbajar.[30] Following this, in early June, Surat Huseynov, an Azerbaijani military commander, frustrated with what he felt was then Azerbaijani president Abulfaz Elchibey's incompetence and his demotion, rebelled and marched from its base in Ganja towards Baku. Elchibey stepped down from office on 18 June, and power was assumed by then parliamentary member and an ex-Soviet leader Heydar Aliyev. On 1 July, Huseynov was appointed as the Prime Minister of Azerbaijan.[31]
References[edit]
- ↑ Abbasov, Idrak (21 February 2004). "Azeri Veterans Recall Military Fiasco". BBC Azerbaijani Service. Archived from the original on 24 December 2020. Retrieved 10 February 2021.
- ↑ HRW 1994, p. 14.
- ↑ Walker 1998, p. 23.
- ↑ Javid (6 April 2020). "Ağdaban faciəsi – 28 il" [Aghdaban tragedy – 28 years]. Khalg Jabhasi (in azərbaycanca). Archived from the original on 10 December 2020. Retrieved 10 February 2021. Unknown parameter
|url-status=ignored (help) - ↑ Babanli, Yusif (18 April 2012). "Silenced voice of Agdaban". News.az. Archived from the original on 22 October 2018. Retrieved 10 February 2021 – via Karabakh.org. Unknown parameter
|url-status=ignored (help) - ↑ "UNHCR publication for CIS Conference (Displacement in the CIS) – Conflicts in the Caucasus". UNHCR. United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. 1 May 1996. Archived from the original on 10 October 2020. Retrieved 12 January 2021.
This mountain enclave, mostly inhabited by people of Armenian language and origin, had been placed under Azerbaijan’s jurisdiction in the 1920s, and was entirely surrounded by villages populated by Azeris.
- ↑ 7.0 7.1 De Waal, Thomas (2013). Black Garden Armenia and Azerbaijan Through Peace and War, 10th Year Anniversary Edition, Revised and Updated. New York University Press. ISBN 978-0-8147-7082-5. OCLC 1154881834. Search this book on
- ↑ "The fighting in Nagorno-Karabakh reflects decades of conflict". The Economist. 29 October 2020. Archived from the original on 27 November 2020. Retrieved 12 January 2021.
- ↑ de Waal, Thomas (2003). Black Garden: Armenia and Azerbaijan Through Peace and War. New York: New York University Press. p. 90. ISBN 978-0-8147-1945-9.
Around ninety Armenians died in the Baku pogroms.
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- ↑ Parks, Micheal (27 November 1988). "Soviet Tells of Blocking Slaughter of Armenians: General Reports His Soldiers Have Suppressed Dozens of Massacre Attempts by Azerbaijanis". Los Angeles Times. Archived from the original on 17 November 2020. Retrieved 12 January 2021.
- ↑ Broers, Laurence (2019). Armenia and Azerbaijan: Anatomy of Rivalry. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. p. 18. ISBN 978-1-4744-5055-3.
Armenians see the campaign that emerged in 1987 to unify Karabakh and Armenia as peaceful, yet met with organized pogroms killing dozens of Armenians in the Azerbaijani cities of Sumgait, Kirovabad (today's Ganja) and Baku in 1988–1990.
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- ↑ Barringer, Felicity (7 December 1988). "3 More Killed in Soviet Ethnic Protest". The New York Times. Archived from the original on 9 January 2021. Retrieved 12 January 2020.
- ↑ Khlystun, Victor (1 February 2001). "10 БАЛЛОВ ПО ШКАЛЕ ПОЛИТБЮРО" [10 Points on the Politburo Scale]. Trud (in русский). Archived from the original on 10 January 2021. Retrieved 12 January 2021.
- ↑ Papyan, Mane (22 April 2015). "Gugark after Sumgait". Caucasus Edition (in русский). Archived from the original on 9 January 2021. Retrieved 12 January 2021.
- ↑ "Карабах: хронология конфликт" [Karabakh: Chronology of the conflict]. BBC Russian Service (in русский). 29 August 2005. Archived from the original on 20 December 2020. Retrieved 12 January 2021.
- ↑ 16.0 16.1 Brown 1996, p. 125.
- ↑ Christopher 1996, p. 89–111.
- ↑ Walker 1998, p. 25.
- ↑ "Karabakh: Azerbaijani army nears 'fortress city' Shushi/Shusha". JAMNews. 6 November 2020. Archived from the original on 9 November 2020. Retrieved 10 February 2021.
- ↑ "Laçın – məğrur rayonun hekayəsi" [Lachin, the story of a proud region]. BBC Azerbaijani Service (in azərbaycanca). 1 December 2020. Archived from the original on 15 January 2021. Retrieved 10 February 2021. Unknown parameter
|url-status=ignored (help) - ↑ "Азербайджан взял под контроль Лачин спустя 28 лет" [Azerbaijan took control of Lachin after 28 years]. Caucasian Knot (in azərbaycanca). 1 December 2020. Archived from the original on 15 January 2021. Retrieved 10 February 2021. Unknown parameter
|url-status=ignored (help) - ↑ 22.0 22.1 "Kəlbəcər - dağların əhatəsindəki zəngin rayon" [Kalbajar, a rich region surrounded by mountains]. BBC Azerbaijani Service (in azərbaycanca). 25 November 2020. Archived from the original on 24 December 2020. Retrieved 10 February 2021. Unknown parameter
|url-status=ignored (help) - ↑ Aliyev, Yaşar (15 April 2020). "Letter dated 14 April 2020 from the Permanent Representative of Azerbaijan to the United Nations addressed to the Secretary-General" (PDF). United Nations Security Council. Archived from the original (PDF) on 20 January 2021. Retrieved 10 February 2021.
Armenians looted and destroyed historical-architectural and cultural monuments, as well as shrines and cemeteries of the Turkic-Islamic period in the village. Manuscripts and house museum of outstanding Azerbaijani poet Ashug Gurban and his son Ashug Shamshir were burned and destroyed.
Unknown parameter|url-status=ignored (help) - ↑ "Доклад правозащитного центра "Мемориал" о массовых нарушениях прав человека, связанных с занятием населенного пункта Ходжалы в ночь с 25 на 26 февраля 1992 г. вооружёнными формированиями" [Report of the Human Rights Center "Memorial" on massive human rights violations related to the occupation of the Khojaly settlement on the night of 25 to 26 February 1992, by armed groups]. Memorial. Archived from the original on 31 July 2010. Retrieved 10 February 2021. Unknown parameter
|url-status=ignored (help) - ↑ "20 killed in attack on Azerbaijani village". Deseret News. 17 February 1992. Archived from the original on 5 March 2016. Retrieved 10 February 2021. Unknown parameter
|url-status=ignored (help) - ↑ HRW 1994, p. 6.
- ↑ Melkonian 2005, p. 243.
- ↑ "Xəzər nərəsiz qala bilər" [The Caspian Sea may be left without sturgeons]. Azadlig Radiosu (in azərbaycanca). Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. 2 April 2008. Archived from the original on 7 February 2021. Retrieved 10 February 2021.
- ↑ HRW, 1994 & 35–54.
- ↑ "1993 UN Security Council Resolutions on Nagorno-Karabakh". United States Department of State. Archived from the original on 26 January 2021. Retrieved 10 February 2021.
- ↑ Toronto Star 1993, p. A12.
Sources[edit]
- Brown, Michael E. (1996). The International Dimensions of Internal Conflict. Cambridge: MIT Press. ISBN 0-262-52209-8. Search this book on
- "Rebel troops push toward Azeri capital". Toronto Star. 21 June 1993. Archived from the original on 6 October 2016.
External links[edit]
- Agdaban.org, an Azerbaijan-based website overviewing the massacre.
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