Aregaa young woman Stepanakertthe capital of Nagorno-Karabakh, hasn’t slept for more than 48 hours. But in the last 10 months it is not that she has been able to sleep peacefully because although she is outside the region, in Yerevanthe capital of Armeniahis parents and his entire family have been trapped in Stepanakert due to the blockade that Azerbaijan established in December 2022.
Before Azerbaijan launched its military offensive last Tuesday, Food was scarce and medicines did not arrive., but danger did not seem to lurk every minute. Life for Arega’s parents was not a countdown. Now it is. “They are no longer safe. Nobody is safe anymore. It is a horror. It’s the end. It just can’t be. Is incredible. It can’t be,” says the young woman, between screams and sobs, in a telephone conversation.
More screams from other people are heard around him. Despair is perceived. Yerevan, this Thursday, September 21, Armenian Independence Daylives in a ‘prop’ of prophecy of the end of the worldin a present for which no future is seen.
After the surrender of the Nagorno-Karabakh authorities to Azerbaijanthis Thursday talks began to reach an agreement that will serve to Baku resume the total control of the regionestablished as a ‘de facto’ state in 1991 during the first Karabakh war.
In the area, until now they lived 120,000 Armenians, especially in the capital, Stepanakert. It is his future that is a complete unknown. The Azerbaijani government insists that these Armenians are its citizens and that your rights will be respected once Nagorno-Karabakh becomes part of Azerbaijan.
They are nothing more than words. Every adult man in Karabakh has fought at some point against the Azerbaijani Army, both in the 1990s war and in the 2020 war; every Armenian – as well as an Azerbaijani, whose defeat in the first Karabakh war was traumatic for the same reasons that the current moment is for Armenians—he knows up close someone who died in the conflict. With hatred between Armenians and Azerbaijanis re-burned, it is difficult to think that a considerable number of Karabakh Armenians would choose to stay in the region.
“I don’t know what to say… My parents are still home, but I’m not sure. Communications are not working, many hours pass between us being able to talk. I don’t know… I really don’t know…”, continues Arega, who does not say it but thinks it: he believes that he will never again see his native Stepanakert.
Victory and surrender
In that city, meanwhile, tension remains high. During this Thursday morning there were small skirmishes between Azerbaijani soldiers stationed near Stepanakert and local armed factions who, contrary to the order of their superiors in hand over weapons, have decided to revolt. These battles, however, have been sporadic and have lasted only a few hours.
“Our Government has prepared housing to house at least 40,000 Karabakh families in case it is necessary,” the Armenian Prime Minister said this Thursday, Nikol Pashinyanmuch discussed in recent days by the most nationalist sectors of the country, who accuse him of having away from the conflict. In reality, his room for maneuver was slim. Since the end of the second Karabakh war in 2020, the Armenian Army has no possible response to the Azerbaijani, modernized thanks to the oil money and the help of Israel and TürkiyeAzerbaijan’s great allies.
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“Despite these houses that we have prepared, I still believe that Karabakh Armenians should have the opportunity to stay in their homes and be safe there. In our conversations, I have expressed to the Karabakh authorities that evacuation of the area It doesn’t have to be plan a or plan b. Azerbaijan cannot absolve itself of its responsibility if what it wants is ethnically cleansing the region,” Pashinyan continued.
Right now, however, everything is up in the air. And after the Azerbaijani victory in the lightning offensive This Tuesday, the future is in the hands of the wishes and designs of one man: the president of Azerbaijan, Ilham Aliyev. What he decides will mark the end of a conflict, that of Karabakh, with more than 100 years of history.