Azerbaijan using cluster munitions against Karabakh civilians

PanARMENIAN.Net - Azerbaijan is using cluster munitions to target civilian settlements and the peaceful population of Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh), the Human Rights Defender of Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh), Artak Beglaryan, said on Sunday, October 4.

Beglaryan called on the international community to start acting against Azerbaijan's aggression towards the Armenians of Karabakh.

"The repeated use of cluster munitions in densely populated settlements is a grave breach of international humanitarian law, and a grave breach of Azerbaijan’s international human rights obligations, including its positive obligations with respect to the right to life and health, the prohibition of cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment, and the right to property, although Azerbaijan is not a party to the 2008 Convention on Cluster Munitions," Beglaryan said.

"It is forbidden to use cluster munitions in any case if the effects of such use cannot be limited as required by international humanitarian law, namely – when the distinction between military targets cannot be ensured."

"Stop talking! Start acting!" he said in the video.

Beglaryan himself lost his vision when he was 6 after the first Azerbaijani-Karabakh war in the 1990s, as a result of an Azerbaijani landmine explosion.

Armenian Defense Ministry representative Artsrun Hovhannisyan said Saturday that the Azerbaijani Armed Forces are using LAR-160 multiple launch rocket systems to fire cluster munitions prohibited by humanitarian law from into the civilians settlements of Karabakh.

A cluster munition is a form of air-dropped or ground-launched explosive weapon that releases or ejects smaller submunitions. Because cluster bombs release many small bomblets over a wide area, they pose risks to civilians both during attacks and afterwards․

Cluster munitions are prohibited for those nations that ratify the Convention on Cluster Munitions, adopted in Dublin, Ireland in May 2008. The Convention has more than 100 state parties.

Azerbaijan launched a large-scale offensive against Karabakh (Artsakh) in the morning of September 27, shelling Armenian positions and civilian settlements with large caliber weapons and rocket systems. Armenia and Karabakh have introduced martial law and total mobilization. The Armenian side has reported deaths and injuries both among the civilian population and the military. International and local journalists too have been injured in Azeri shelling of civilian settlements.