More than 100,000 Armenians have fled the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh, many along the highway to Goris (pictured), after Azerbaijan launched a military offensive in the contested region. Photos: dpa
For many arriving from Nagorno-Karabakh, the cultural palace of Goris (in the south of Armenia) provides the first opportunity for some respite.
Located only 15km from Armenia’s border with Azerbaijan, a reception centre was hastily put together in the small town to cope with the influx of refugees after Azerbaijan seized the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh in the South Caucasus last month.
New arrivals are registered in the cultural palace, where they can also receive medical treatment if needed before being sent on to other places. The foyer has been turned into a giant dormitory by beds set up overnight.
In front of the building, refugees are boarding a bus headed to eastern Armenia, while a family sets off in a veteran grey Toyota, filled to the brim with their belongings. Further items stuffed into plastic bags have been stacked onto a cupboard attached to the roof rack. Thousands of overloaded vehicles have been heading down the steep winding roads of the Armenian South Caucasus on this sunny autumn day as their owners flee the region’s latest conflict.
Refugees from Nagorno-Karabakh with their belongings after a bus journey lasting several days.
Nagorno-Karabakh, a region contested by the two former Soviet republics Armenia and Azerbaijan for decades, though it lies on Azerbaijani territory, was mostly inhabited by Armenians until the latest outbreak of hostilities.
In the 1990s, Nagorno-Karabakh was able to break away from Baku in a bloody civil war with the help of Yerevan.
In 2020, Azerbaijan, with a much- expanded military from oil and gas revenues, managed to recapture large parts of the region. But a ceasefire brokered by Russia proved fragile and on Sept 19, Azerbaijan launched a military offensive in the contested region, forcing the capitulation of the self-styled Republic of Artsakh, which is not internationally recognised. Its Armenian leaders then announced that the republic would be dissolved from the start of 2024.
The population of ethnic Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh was only about 120,000 before the latest conflict, according to recent estimates.
Most of them – more than 100,000 – have now fled the region in fear of Azerbaijani rule, according to the Armenian government.
Those passing through Goris are offered water and a warm meal in front of tents set up by different aid organisations.
Margarita, a 60-year-old from Nagorno-Karabakh who arrived with her mother, daughter, son-in-law and seven grand- children, is searching a pile of old clothes strewn about on the ground.
“I am terribly embarrassed,” she says. “I don’t usually rummage through things like that.”
But she and her family had to leave everything behind in their hasty escape which turned into a gruelling journey of several days, Margarita explains as she looks for something for her grandkids to wear.
“I had to flee for the second time,” Margarita says, the first time after Azerbaijan partially recaptured Nagorno-Karabakh in 2020 after fierce fighting.
Now that Baku has forcibly retaken the whole region, Margarita’s family has become homeless for the second time.
“We were sold,” she says, her voice full of anger at Armenia’s government led by Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan.
Margarita and her grandson Tigran collect clothes after their hasty flight from Nagorno-Karabakh.
Like many protesting in Yerevan, she accuses the country’s leadership of having given up Nagorno-Karabakh without putting up a fight.
Margarita, who used to work as a chemist in the mining industry, herself had fought in the 1990s conflict, which saw Nagorno-Karabakh breaking away from Azerbaijan. But now she sees no chance of ever returning to her homeland. “I just hope my grandchildren will find their way here,” the 60-year-old says.
She proudly points to 10-year-old Tigran standing beside her. Just as his namesake Tigran Petrosian, a Soviet-Armenian chess champion in the 1960s, he’s a great chess player, according to his grandmother.
Gevork is also passionate about chess. The 28-year-old used to teach physics and chess in the Karabakh village of Gerger, his family’s home since his great-great grandfather.
Gevork’s own father was killed in the 2020 war. When hostilities broke out again in September, he, his mother, his wife and his two siblings decided to leave Nagorno-Karabakh, not knowing whether they would ever be able to return.
Currently, Gevork says, they are headed for Masis, a city south of Yerevan close to Turkiye’s Mount Ararat, where they have already found a flat. Everything else will have to be found in time, he adds.
When asked why he left Nagorno-Karabakh despite assurances from Baku that there was no reason to flee, Gevork says he doesn’t believe in the promises.
“This has been going on for more than 100 years, ever since the massacre of 1915,” the 28-year-old says, recalling the Armenian genocide in the Ottoman Empire during World War I, in which up to 1.5 million people were killed.
Turkiye, whose President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has been flirting with the idea of resurrecting the Ottoman Empire, firmly backs Azerbaijan in the conflict between Baku and Yerevan, as the two countries share linguistic and cultural links.
The shared history of Armenia and Azerbaijan is also a bloody one, marked by pogroms and mutual expulsion.
The fact that, before launching a military operation last month, Azerbaijan had blocked the only access road to Nagorno-Karabakh for months, provoking a humanitarian catastrophe, is also fuelling Karabakh Armenians’ distrust in the Baku government.
After having seized the disputed region, the Azerbaijani military has since reopened the Lachin Corridor, but it still took Gevork’s family four days to reach Armenia amid long traffic jams.
In Vayk, some 140km from Yerevan, they were able to stock up on water and groceries for the rest of their journey.
Vayk, a small town of some 5,000 inhabitants, is visibly struggling with the number of arrivals. Streets are lined by refugees perched between suitcases and plastic bags.
A refugee searches for trousers in piles of old clothes at a reception centre in Goris, the first port of call for many refugees from Nagorno-Karabakh.
Edvard, a 47-year-old worker who arrived from the capital of Nagorno-Karabakh, Stepanakert, points to his swollen legs: “They are as worn as old tyres,” after the long bus journey, he says.
Armenian premier Pashinyan has promised to support the refugees with US$250 (RM1,185) per month for the next half year. But as in Goris, it’s mostly volunteers trying to mitigate the situation in Vayk, where they have set up half a dozen tents to hand out food.
“Yesterday, there were 2,000 people in our tent alone, 600 of them children,” says Karen, who volunteers for a Christian aid organisation. He and his team hand out sandwiches, vegetables, as well as hot lunches. In an attempt to lighten the mood, they make candyfloss for the children. “Almost all the arrivals are depressed and sad. Most of them don’t have the strength to be angry,” says the 47-year-old.
Shasmin, 68, confirms his impression. “I feel an emptiness and deep regret,” she says. “We have lost everything.”
'I feel an emptiness and deep regret,' Shasmin says, sitting exhausted on a bench after a journey that lasted several days.
Raised as an Armenian in Baku, she had to flee Azerbaijan amid ethnic unrest in 1988 – with three little daughters in tow.
“Two of my daughters now live in Kharkiv, Ukraine,” she says, a city that is repeatedly being shelled amid Russia’s war on Ukraine.
Meanwhile, Shasmin, her husband and their third daughter lost their home a second time after they had to flee from Stepanakert, she says.
Three days the family spent sitting outside on the street waiting for the bus to get them out of the city, the 68-year-old says.
Now she’s been offered a place to stay in a remote village – but Shasmin finds herself unable to accept.
“I have always lived in the city, I don’t know if I can manage to change at my age and start all over again.” – dpa/Andre Ballin
