UN mission didn’t see “damage to public infrastructure” in Karabakh

PanARMENIAN.Net - A UN mission led by the the organization’s Resident Coordinator in Azerbaijan, together with other senior agency officials, traveled to Nagorno-Karabakh after Azerbaijan’s devastating offensive but did not see any “damage to public infrastructure, including hospitals, schools, housing, or cultural and religious structures.

At least 200 people, including three children, were killed in Azerbaijan’s latest military offensive, as a result of which the entire population of Nagorno-Karabakh was forcibly displaced. Almost all of them have now crossed the border into Armenia.

The mission, however, said on October 2 that they there were “no signs of damage to public buildings”, despite a plethora of photos proving otherwise.

“The team added that they did not hear – from either locals interviewed or others – of incidences of violence against civilians following the latest ceasefire,” the mission said in a statement .

“The team heard from interlocutors that between 50 and 1,000 ethnic Armenians remain in the Karabakh region.”

The mission, according to the statement, did not get access to rural areas, but “did not see any signs of destruction of agricultural infrastructure or livestock.”

The team also included Ramesh Rajasingham, the Director of the Coordination Division of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, as well as representatives from the Food and Agriculture Organization, the UN Refugee Agency, UNICEF and the World Health Organization, as well as a technical team from the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, the UN Resident Coordinator’s Office and the UN Department of Safety and Security.