More than 53,000 people from Nagorno-Karabakh population have fled into Armenia since Azerbaijan launched an attack on the breakaway region last week, according to Armenia’s government.
Around40% of the region’s population of 120,000 people has scrambled to flee as soon as Azerbaijan lifted a 10-month blockade on the region’s only road to Armenia. That blockade had caused severe shortages of food, medicine and fuel, and many residents fearing reprisals have already fled.
The updated figures came as the death toll from an explosion at a fuel depot in Nagorno-Karabakh rose to 68, with a further 105 people missing and nearly 300 injured, the office of Karabakh’s ombudsman said.
The explosion took place as people lined up to fill their cars at a gas station outside Stepanakert, the region’s capital, late Monday. The cause of the blast remains unclear, but Nagorno-Karabakh presidential aide David Babayan said initial information suggested that it resulted from negligence, adding that sabotage was unlikely.
Armenian authorities also said that they brought 125 bodies over to Armenia from Nagorno-Karabakh for identification. The country’s Health Ministry clarified that all of those were killed in the fighting last week.
Azerbaijani presidential aide Hikmet Hajiyev said on X, formerly Twitter, that hospitals in Azerbaijan were ready to treat victims, but did not say if any had been taken there.
US secretary of state Antony Blinken urged Azerbaijan’s president, Ilham Aliyev, to refrain from further hostilities in the region, to provide assurances to its residents and to allow access to an international observer mission.
US national security council spokesperson Adrienne Watson said the US would provide additional assistance to help local communities “provide shelter and essential supplies – such as hygiene kits, blankets, and clothing – to address the needs of those affected or displaced by violence in Nagorno-Karabakh.”
The Azerbaijani military routed Armenian forces in a 24-hour blitz last week, forcing the local authorities to agree to lay down weapons and start talks on Nagorno-Karabakh’s “reintegration” into Azerbaijan.
Fuel has been in short supply in Stepanakert for months, and the depot explosion further added to the shortages, compounding anxiety among many residents about whether they would be able to drive the 35 kilometres to the border.
On Tuesday, cars bearing large loads on their roofs crowded the streets of Stepanakert, and residents stood or lay along sidewalks next to heaps of luggage.
Nagorno-Karabakh authorities asked residents to hold off on leaving in order to keep the road clear for emergency services and said buses would be provided for those who want to leave.
“I think we’re going to see the vast majority of people in Karabakh leaving for Armenia,” said Thomas de Waal, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Europe thinktank. “They are being told to integrate into Azerbaijan, a country that they’ve never been part of, and most of them don’t even speak the language and are being told to dismantle their local institutions. That’s an offer that most people in Karabakh will not accept.”
Nagorno-Karabakh was an autonomous region within Azerbaijan under the Soviet Union. The region came under the control of ethnic Armenian forces, backed by the Armenian military, after a six-year war that ended in 1994.
In another war in 2020, Azerbaijan took parts of Nagorno-Karabakh and completely reclaimed surrounding territory that it lost earlier. Under the armistice that ended the 2020 fighting, Russia deployed a peacekeeping force of about 2,000 to the region. Russia’s influence in the region has waned amid its war in Ukraine, emboldening Azerbaijan and its main ally, Turkey.
