US State Department report documents Azerbaijan's violations of human rights against Armenians

YEREVAN, APRIL 23, ARMENPRESS. The US Department of State has published its annual Human Rights Report, which has documented the displacement of ethnic Armenian population as a result of Azerbaijan's military operation in Nagorno-Karabakh, as well as the fact that Azerbaijan targeted civilian infrastructure in Armenia, resulting in civilian casualties.

“Sporadic incidents of fighting in the decades-long conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan continued, resulting in civilian casualties. Throughout the year, Azerbaijani forces targeted infrastructure inside Armenia, including a construction site of a metallurgical plant in the village of Yeraskh in the Ararat region, seriously injuring two civilian workers," the State Department has said in the report.

“On September 19-20, Azerbaijan conducted a military operation to gain full control over Nagorno-Karabakh. Since December 2022, Azerbaijan had closed the Lachin Corridor to most civilian and commercial traffic, allowing only intermittent humanitarian access until Azerbaijan reopened it on September 24 for one-way traffic out of Nagorno-Karabakh. Between September 24 and October 1, more than 100,000 Nagorno-Karabakh residents – virtually all of the region’s ethnic Armenians – fled to Armenia,” the report has noted.

“In a September report, citing a video, the International Partnership for Human Rights (IPHR) asserted that during the September 2022 fighting, there was a “reasonable basis to believe” that “Azerbaijani Armed Forces committed extrajudicial killings of Armenian soldiers,” it reads.

The US State Department has reminded that in IPHR’s September report on the September 2022 fighting, the organization – relying on videos and photographs of soldiers’ corpses – stated there was a “reasonable basis to conclude” that Armenian soldiers were subjected to cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment and torture by Azerbaijani soldiers.