The US Department of State has published its annual Human Rights Report, which has documented the displacement of ethnic Armenian population as a result of Azerbaijan’s military operation in Nagorno-Karabakh, as well as the fact that Azerbaijan targeted civilian infrastructure in Armenia, resulting in civilian casualties.
“Sporadic incidents of fighting in the decades-long conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan continued, resulting in civilian casualties. Throughout the year, Azerbaijani forces targeted infrastructure inside Armenia, including a construction site of a metallurgical plant in the village of Yeraskh in the Ararat region, seriously injuring two civilian workers,” the State Department has said in the report.
“On September 19-20, Azerbaijan conducted a military operation to gain full control over Nagorno-Karabakh. Since December 2022, Azerbaijan had closed the Lachin Corridor to most civilian and commercial traffic, allowing only intermittent humanitarian access until Azerbaijan reopened it on September 24 for one-way traffic out of Nagorno-Karabakh. Between September 24 and October 1, more than 100,000 Nagorno-Karabakh residents – virtually all of the region’s ethnic Armenians – fled to Armenia,” the report has noted.
“In a September report, citing a video, the International Partnership for Human Rights (IPHR) asserted that during the September 2022 fighting, there was a “reasonable basis to believe” that “Azerbaijani Armed Forces committed extrajudicial killings of Armenian soldiers,” it reads.
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The US State Department has reminded that in IPHR’s September report on the September 2022 fighting, the organization – relying on videos and photographs of soldiers’ corpses – stated there was a “reasonable basis to conclude” that Armenian soldiers were subjected to cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment and torture by Azerbaijani soldiers.