Rachel Treisman – September 27, 2020
Fighting broke out between Armenia and Azerbaijan in the disputed territory of Nagorno-Karabakh on Sunday, causing casualties on both sides and prompting the Armenian government to declare martial law and mobilize its military.
The conflict is the latest eruption of violence in a decades-long dispute over the region, which lies within the borders of Azerbaijan but is controlled by ethnic Armenian forces. Both countries have reported military and civilian deaths as of Sunday afternoon.
Armenian officials said Azerbaijani forces launched a “missile and aerial attack” in the region on Sunday morning, targeting peaceful settlements and shelling civilian infrastructures, while Azerbaijan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said its armed forces were responding to Armenian shelling.
Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said in a tweet that the aggression seemed to be pre-planned, and “constitutes large-scale provocation against regional peace & security.”
Azerbaijan’s president, Ilham Aliyev, countered that “the first fire, including artillery fire, was opened by Armenia, and the first victims were Azerbaijani servicemen.”
Officials in both Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh declared martial law and dispatched armed forces as tensions rose on Sunday morning.
The human rights ombudsman of Nagorno-Karabakh said that a woman and child were killed and two civilians were wounded in the Martuni region as a result of Azerbaijani shelling. The region’s deputy defense minister later said that 16 Armenian forces were killed and more than 100 were wounded.
Aliyev, Azerbaijan’s president, said enemy fire had killed and wounded both servicemen and civilians, and that “shedding of their blood will not go unpunished.”
“Armenia is an occupying state, and an end to this occupation must and will be put,” Aliyev added.