Armenian Foreign Ministry commemorates victims of Maragha massacre

The Armenian Ministry of Foreign Affairs has commemorated the victims of the Maragha massacre, the 1992 mass murder of Armenian civilians by the Azerbaijani military in the village of Maragha in Nagorno-Karabakh.

In a statement on X, the Armenian Foreign Ministry said that prevention of such atrocities and achieving lasting peace requires abandoning hate speech and promoting respect for fundamental human rights.

“On April 10, 1992, the Armenian civilians of the village of Maragha were subjected to complete ethnic cleansing: more than 50 civilians, including 30 women, were killed by the Azerbaijani forces, while the population of 5000 was forcibly displaced. 29 women & 9 children were taken hostage, the fate of 19 is still unknown. These atrocities were well documented in the reports of Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International. The patterns of behavior that led to the Maragha massacre – ethnic hatred, impunity, glorification of war crimes, the destruction of Armenian cultural sites & forced displacement – were earlier witnessed during the 1988-1990 pogroms of Armenians in Sumgait, Kirovabad, Baku, and elsewhere. Today, as we pay tribute to the victims of pogroms in Maragha, we recall that prevention of such atrocities and achieving lasting peace requires abandoning hate speech and promoting respect for fundamental human rights,” the foreign ministry said in the statement.