The area around Shusha was once called the "Switzerland of Azerbaijan" for its wooded hills and mild climate - a nickname that belies a history of periodic violence between ethnic Azerbaijanis and Armenians stretching back more than a century.
A year and a half ago, Azerbaijani forces retook the town from the ethnic Armenians who had seized it in 1992 for the Armenian-backed breakaway enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh, driving out the 15,000 Azerbaijanis who lived there.
