YEREVAN, Armenia, Sep 18 (IPS) – It has been 12 months since Hayk Harutyunyan, a 22-year-old photographer from Nagorno-Karabakh, last cleaned his house and closed the door behind him for good.
“Every morning, before I open my eyes, I imagine how wonderful it would be to wake up at home. But again, I’m not there…” Harutyunyan tells IPS in the park next to the apartment his family currently rents on the outskirts of Yerevan, the Armenian capital.
Hayk Harutyunyan is one of more than 100,000 Armenians forced to flee Nagorno-Karabakh after the latest and final Azerbaijani offensive on September 19, 2023.
Nagorno-Karabakh, also known as Artsakh by the Armenian population, was a self-declared republic within Azerbaijan. Since the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, the city has sought international recognition and independence.
Today, most Karabakh Armenians struggle to survive, scattered throughout the Republic of Armenia. Others have chosen to emigrate abroad.
“I still keep my house key in my wallet. I refuse to think that I will never return, although I have no idea how or when,” says the photographer. He also documents the situation of the displaced with his photos. Being a reporter and a victim, he admits, can be too challenging.
A legacy of conflict
The younger generations have also inherited decades of war in this part of the world
After a 44-day war in 2020, Azerbaijan gained control of two-thirds of the territory then under Armenian control. Nagorno-Karabakh also lost its direct land connection to Armenia.
The war ended with a peace agreement that Moscow intervened in. Russian peacekeepers were deployed to ensure the safety of the Armenians still in the enclave. But it was not to be.
Last year’s offensive was launched after a brutal nine-month battle blockade through Azerbaijan, closing the only road connecting Nagorno-Karabakh to Armenia and the outside world.
Hayk recalls the months when he and the other Armenians left in the enclave faced extreme shortages of food, medicine, electricity, fuel and other basic necessities.
“We could stand in line for hours for bread and even return home empty-handed, but at least we were there, we were home…,” says the young displaced person. Crossing the border into Armenia, he recalls, was “like crossing a wall, leaving my soul behind and taking only my body with me.”
Many displaced people came to Armenia, only to find that housing prices were skyrocketing due to an influx of people from countries such as Russia, who moved to Armenia after the war in Ukraine. The people of Artsakh are faced with these skyrocketing costs and are struggling to find affordable accommodation in an increasingly challenging market.
At 58, Ruzanna Baziyan, a Russian language teacher and mother of four, today lives with memories of the country where she has spent her entire life. She has a preschool-age granddaughter. She says the little girl rebels against reality in her own quiet way.
“When we go shopping, she always chooses things that remind her of home, whether it’s toys or a bicycle in the same colours and shapes as the one she had in Stepanakert, the former capital of Nagorno-Karabakh. It’s like she’s reliving parts of the life she left behind,” Baziyan tells IPS from her apartment in northeastern Yerevan.
“The girl even asked me if the birds had also left Stepanakert. It is as if she still cannot believe what happened to us. She says she is jealous of the birds,” the Armenian woman notes.
While Baziyan does not believe coexistence is possible, she is blunt about the will of her people: “All Armenians want to live in their own homes. Most of them would like to return if there were guarantees of safety and dignity, but not under Azerbaijani rule. We cannot face genocide in our own home,” she adds.
The right of return
In addition to being a deeply personal wish, the return of refugees and exiles is a right recognized in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
Two months after the mass displacement, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) governed that Azerbaijan must ensure the “safe and unhindered return” of these displaced persons, and the European Parliament did so. solution adopted in March last year.
The Azerbaijani government has offered Karabakh Armenians the chance to return to their homes on condition that they agree to live under Azerbaijani rule. However, the offer has been consistently rejected by both local leaders and Karabakh residents, even before the offensive triggered their mass exodus.
Meanwhile, former residents of Nagorno-Karabakh watch helplessly on social media as Azerbaijanis loot their homes, destroy their cemeteries and even vandalize cultural heritage, including medieval churches.
“Going back is simply impossible. If it was possible to live together, why would people leave their homes, their land and their homeland in just a few days?” Gegham Stepanyan, Artsakh Ombudsman and member of the Committee for the Defense of Fundamental Rights of the People of Artsakh, told IPS by phone from Yerevan.
This lack of security guarantees is confirmed by numerous reports from international NGOs such as Human Rights Watch And Amnesty International During the 2020 war, they also raised concerns about attacks on civilians, violations of the rules of war, and the killing and ill-treatment of prisoners of war and peaceful inhabitants.
Similar violations were reported during the 2023 lockdown.
On September 2, 2024, the International Association of Genocide Scholars, a US-based independent organization, published a solution condemning Azerbaijan’s “genocidal actions” in Nagorno-Karabakh and calling on the international community to “recognize these atrocities, guarantee the right of Armenians to return to their homeland and ensure their safety.”
Azerbaijan has also come under fire for its handling of civil liberties, press freedom, political prisoners and human rights violations, especially in conflict zones. However, the lack of security guarantees is apparently not the only hurdle on the road home for the displaced.
“The right of return is directly related to the right to self-determination and it is also enshrined in the international law of nations. The people of Karabakh are no different, they also have this right,” Stepanyan said.
His committee is working to create “a platform where possible solutions can be explored,” but he acknowledged that such a body does not yet exist, partly because Armenia has dropped the topic from the negotiating agenda.
“The solution to this problem ultimately depends on the political will of international actors, some of whom are too focused on their own economic and financial interests in Azerbaijan,” Stepanyan said.
Following the reduction in Russian gas supplies after the invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Europe has signed several energy deals with Baku to ensure supplies.
Conflict
After joining the miles-long caravan fleeing Nagorno-Karabakh last year, 22-year-old law student Snezhana Tamrazyan sought shelter in Kapan, 300 kilometers south of Yerevan.
“Living under Azerbaijani rule was never an option. It is not only dangerous, it is a matter of principle. Our struggle, the struggle of our parents, grandparents and our children, was to keep Artsakh as Armenian territory. So what was the point of all this?” Tamrazyan told IPS over the phone.
Like other displaced families from Karabakh, Snezhana also carries with her a story of war and displacement. Her mother, she recalls, was the same age when she was displaced after a seven-day pogrom in Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan, in 1990, which ended with the final expulsion of Armenians from the Caspian city.
“We have been through so much… How could I ever live with those responsible for the death and suffering of our people?” said Snezhana, who recalled feeling “like a traitor” when she left the besieged enclave last year.
“Leaving my home country was never my decision,” she tells herself. “I was forced out. We were all forced out.”
© Inter Press Service (2024) — All rights reservedOriginal source: Inter Press Service
