January 13, 2020 - 11:29 AMT
Armenia commemorates 30th anniversary of Baku pogrom

Armenia is commemorating the 30th anniversary of the Baku pogrom—a pogrom carried out against the ethnic Armenian civilian population of Baku, Azerbaijan in 1990—on Monday, January 13.

During the seven-day pogrom, Armenians were beaten, murdered, and expelled from the city, while raids on apartments, robberies and arsons left many homeless.

As evidenced by a number of eyewitnesses and major international news agencies, the pogrom was not a spontaneous and one-time event but was among a series of ethnic violence acts employed by the Azerbaijanis against the Armenian population during the Nagorno Karabakh conflict.

British journalist and writer on the Caucasus Thomas de Waal has called the pogrom the first part of "Black January".

The pogrom in Baku resulted in many human casualties, and dozens of thousands of Armenians lost their homes and were deported from the country.

300–400 people were killed in the pogrom, according to various sources, although the official number stands at 25.

On January 13, 2020, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, President of the National Assembly Ararat Mirzoyan, Catholicos of All Armenians Karekin II and the country’s top officials visited the Armenian Genocide memorial in Yerevan to pay tribute the memory of the victims of the pogrom.