Azerbaijan President Aliyev says Baku restored its sovereignty in Nagorno-Karabakh. Local ombudsman reports 10 civilians (5 of them children) dead.
The president of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev addressed the nation, declaring Baku’s “anti-terrorist” military mission in Nagorno-Karabakh complete. According to the president, Azerbaijan has restored its sovereignty over the contested territory, populated predominantly by ethnic Armenians.
Alyiev also said that Azerbaijan “completely destroyed” the greater part of the Armenian military units deployed in Nagorno-Karabakh, reportedly in violation of the 2020 peace treaty between the two countries. Armenia’s Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan has denied any presence of Armenian troops in the area after November 2020.
Azerbaijan’s president emphasized his insistence, at the start of the operation, that Armenian civilians should not be subjected to strikes. While “there was an order to spare the civilian infrastructure, all of the military infrastructure had to be disabled,” Aliyev added.
According to the Ombudsman of Nagorno-Karabakh Gegham Stepanyan, at least 200 people have been killed in the operation, including 10 civilians, five of whom were children. Another 400 people have been injured: that figure also includes 40 civilians, 13 of them being children.
