1918 became a fateful year for Baku’s Armenian community. The Armenian population, which had contributed to Baku’s industrial development for decades, faced an existential threat.
On September 15, 1918, the capture by Ottoman-Azerbaijani forces meant not only political control but also the beginning of genocidal massacres against Armenian civilians. Over the following three days, indiscriminate violence was documented by foreign witnesses. During the three-day massacre, various estimates put the number of innocent Armenian victims at over 30-35 thousand. As a result of the mass slaughter, only three of the 31 Armenian villages in the Nukhi and Aresh regions survived.
However, the 1918 massacre of Baku’s Armenians was not the last in the history of Baku Armenians. In 1990, the same tragedy repeated when hundreds of thousands of Baku Armenians were forced to abandon their homes and become refugees with unrestored rights. This demonstrates the cruel consequences of hatred and intolerance toward peaceful Armenian populations.
The “Gardman-Shirvan-Nakhijevan” Pan-Armenian Union pays tribute to the memory of the victims of the Baku massacres 107 years ago. We strongly condemn Azerbaijan’s historical pattern of ethnic cleansing and call on the international community to heed our demand to condemn ethnic and racial violence.
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