ICRC registers 4,500 missing persons during Nagorno-Karabakh conflict
By Aynur Jafarova
The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has
registered over 4,500 missing persons during the Armenia-Azerbaijan
Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.
"Marking the International Day of the Disappeared, August 30, the
ICRC is calling on the international community to pay more
attention to the tragedy of people who have gone missing and the
plight of their families," ICRC said on September 1.
The committee also noted hundreds of thousands of people in all
parts of the world have disappeared as a result of armed conflicts,
natural disasters or migrations.
The committee is continuing to support the authorities on their
efforts to clarify the fate of the missing persons and supporting
the families of the missing persons.
"Providing support to the families of missing people is a
priority for the ICRC, which strives to make sure that their needs
are met," Nicolas Lambert, the Head of the ICRC Barda
Sub-Delegation, said at the opening of the commemoration event in
Barda.
For her part, Head of ICRC Delegation in Azerbaijan Denise Duran
noted the collection of biological samples from very close
relatives of missing persons will complement the detailed data
already available about the missing persons.
Aside from that, the ICRC trains volunteers from amongst the
families of missing persons as social workers. In 2014, a new
project, which is a step forward in gathering data about missing
persons, was piloted jointly by the Azerbaijani government and the
ICRC.
The bloody war, which flared up in the late 1980s due to Armenia's
territorial claims against its South Caucasus neighbor, left
without homes of about 700,000 civilians of Nagorno-Karabakh and
the regions adjoining it, as well as the regions bordering with
Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh.
They are temporarily settled in more than 1,600 settlements across 62 cities and regions of Azerbaijan.
Moreover, 250,000 Azerbaijanis were expelled from Armenia and became refugees due to Armenia's ethnic cleansing policy after the emergence of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict with Azerbaijan.
The Azerbaijanis who had displaced from their homes as result of the brutal war were forced to live in refugee camps, tents and wagons in very difficult conditions.
As a result of the military aggression of Armenia, over 20,000 Azerbaijanis were killed, 4,866 are reported missing, almost 100,000 were injured, and 50,000 were disabled.
The UN Security Council has passed four resolutions on Armenian withdrawal from the Azerbaijani territory, but they have not been enforced to this day.