Authorities in Nagorno-Karabakh have announced that only one loaf of bread will be sold to each family.

The decision comes amid a deepening shortage of bread resulting from Azerbaijan’s eight-month blockade of the Lachin corridor – the sole route connecting Karabakh to Armenia.

The bread shortage worsened in recent days, with Stepanakert residents saying that they now have to spend more hours waiting in lines to buy up to loaves per person from bakeries.

“When you stand in a line you lose a whole day,” one of them, Arega Ishkhanian, told RFE/RL’s Armenian Service. “If you queue up at six in the evening, you may have to wait until the next morning.”

“And the problem is not just bread, there is nothing else available,” she said. “But at least the kids could eat bread.” Since December 12, 2022, the sole road connecting Nagorno Karabakh to Armenia - the Lachin Corridor - has been blocked by Azerbaijan. Baku tightened the blockade on June 15, 2023, banning emergency relief supplies that were carried out by Russian peacekeepers and the International Committee of the Red Cross through the sole road connecting Karabakh to Armenia and the outside world. The move aggravated the shortages of food, medicine and other essential items experienced by the region’s population. On August 15, Karabakh Human Rights Defender’s office reported the first case of death from starvation.