Armenian pogroms in Baku were planned previously

January 13, 2010 - 14:45 AMT

PanARMENIAN.Net -
After the February 1988 Sumgait massacres and brutal crimes against Armenians we never thought the same might happen in Baku, a town with a population of 1.5 million, with 200.000 being Armenians, said Eleonora Avanesova, one of survivors of Armenian pogroms in Baku.

"Even before the pogroms, Armenians in Azerbaijan always suffered from infringements upon their rights," she told Wednesday a news conference in Yerevan.

"I worked in a scientific institute where my articles were always undersigned by other authors My name was at best indicated as a co-author," Avanesova stressed.

According to her, Armenian pogroms in Baku were very well organized, as Azeri gangster groups possessed lists with the names and addresses of all Armenians.

As noted by Robert Khachatryan, another eye-witness, "The pogroms reached their peak on January 13, 1990 after Azerbaijan's Supreme Council passed a decision on withdrawing from USSR."

"Azerbaijani official sources reported 56 people dead, but Armenian experts say 270 Armenians were killed during the pogroms. According to other sources, the number of victims reached 1000," he said, adding that the atrocities against Armenians in Baku can be characterized as Genocide.

Armenian pogrom in Baku

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

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.