U.S. Congress to commemorate Armenian massacre in Sumgait

The Armenian pogrom in Baku was part of Azerbaijani authorities' anti-Armenian program calculated to bring about the destruction of the town's Armenian population. The seven-day pogroms perpetrated by Azerbaijani SSR broke out on January 13, 1990, leaving 300 Armenians dead. The real number of victims remains unclear to date.

The Sumgait Pogrom was the Azeri-led pogrom that targeted the Armenian population living in the Azerbaijani seaside town of Sumgait in February 1988. On February 27, 1988, large mobs made up of Azeris formed into groups that went on to attack and kill Armenians in both on the streets and in their apartments; widespread looting and a general lack of concern from police officers allowed the situation to worsen. The violent acts in Sumgait were unprecedented in scope in the Soviet Union and attracted a great deal of attention from the media in the West. The massacre came in light of the Nagorno-Karabakh movement that was gaining traction in the neighbouring Armenia SSR.