“It’s war”: Karabakh people unable to find children amid Azeri shelling

PanARMENIAN.Net - People in Nagorno-Karabakh (Artsakh) are unable to find their children since the launch by Azerbaijan of a fresh major attack against Karabakh on Tuesday, September 19.

“It's war. My three children are in school. They [the Azerbaijanis - Ed.) have been shooting for about half an hour now. They are shelling. There is no connection, we can't reach them (the children - Ed.). We have all lost our children, there are no cars to pick them up from school,” Karabakh lawmaker Metaqse Hakobyan told News.am.

Azerbaijan has launched a massive shelling of Nagorno-Karabakh (Artsakh), ex-State Minister Ruven Vardanyan says.

Stepanakert, the capital of Karabakh, is being targeted too.

The Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry confirmed the attack, claiming that they have started “local anti-terrorism measures”. According to a statement, the Russian peacekeeping contingent deployed in Nagorno-Karabakh to help protect the Armenian population there has been notified about the attack in advance.

The Azerbaijani military earlier accused the Karabakh military of staging a provocation and planting a mine in territories controlled by Azerbaijan, which had allegedly caused the death of two civilians.

The Nagorno-Karabakh Defense Army denied the accusations on Tuesday. The Defense Army has been denying various accusations from Azerbaijan from quite some time now.

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.