‘It’s a ghost town’: UN arrives in Nagorno-Karabakh to find ethnic Armenians have fled

Refugees from Nagorno-Karabakh in Goris in southern Armenia. Many Armenians who fled said the international mission’s visit came too late. Photograph: Diego Herrera Carcedo/AFP/Getty

Nearly the entire ethnic Armenian population has left Nagorno-Karabakh, as the first United Nations mission arrived in the largely deserted mountainous region on Sunday.

Stephane Dujarric, the spokesperson for the UN secretary general, said the United Nations team on the ground, the first UN mission to the region in 30 years, would “identify the humanitarian needs” both for people remaining and “the people that are on the move”.