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Over 3,800 people went missing due to Armenian aggression

12 September 2017 22:52 (UTC+04:00)
Over 3,800 people went missing due to Armenian aggression

By Rashid Shirinov

As many as 3,868 persons went missing during the Karabakh war between Armenia and Azerbaijan.

The Secretary of Azerbaijan’s State Commission on Prisoners of War, Hostages and Missing Persons and head of its working group, Ismail Akhundov, announced about this on September 12.

He noted that the working group has conducted a serious work over the past two years to clarify the lists of missing persons, and today this work is completed.

“However, given some sensitive and humanitarian aspects of the problem, minor changes may be made to the list,” Akhundov said.

He noted that 3,126 of 3,868 persons, who went missing during the Karabkh war, are military personnel and 742 are civilians, including 62 children, 262women and 302 elderly people.

“In addition, we received data that 872 of 3,868 missing people were captured or became hostages of Armenian soldiers during intense combat action, and are currently kept in caption by them,” he noted. “They are 591 military personnel and 291 civilians. The civilians include 29 children, 98 women and 111 elderly people.”

The bloody war, which flared up in the late 1980s due to Armenia's territorial claims against Azerbaijan led to occupation of 20 percent of Azerbaijan's territory, including Nagorno-Karabakh and seven surrounding regions by Armenian armed forces. In a cruel war, more than 20,000 Azerbaijanis were killed and over 1 million were displaced as a result of the large-scale hostilities.

Armenia repeatedly refused to submit information regarding the fate of thousands of Azerbaijanis, who gone missing or taken hostage.

Azerbaijan has many times declared its readiness to begin negotiations with Armenia to free the captives and resolve the long-standing Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. However, the Armenian side keeps ignoring all attempts of Azerbaijan and international organizations, thereby disrespecting the international law and hindering the settlement of the conflict.

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Rashid Shirinov is AzerNews’ staff journalist, follow him on Twitter: @RashidShirinov

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz

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