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Witness of Khojaly massacre speaks...

26 February 2016 10:00 (UTC+04:00)
Witness of Khojaly massacre speaks...

By Laman Ismayilova

The Ukrainian pilot Leonid Kravets, a witness of genocide committed by Armenians in the night from 25 to 26 February 1992, told about the tragedy that took place 24 years ago.

"I was flying over this territory every day evacuating civilians out of war zones", said Kravets on Thursday at a press-conference in Baku.

"On February 27, we flew with crew over Khojaly and didn't know about the genocide. The helicopter landed and we saw a lot of bodies on the ground. Some of them were alive. Armenians began to shoot us. We came back to Ganja. No one knew about this tragedy", said Ukrainian pilot.

"We immediately reported to the command. The government ordered to send the journalists to make videos. We returned to this area together with Chingiz Mustafayev and other persons. It was a very horrible scene. There were children’s bodies on the ground. The death of soldiers during war is normal. But such a brutal killing of civilians was a rascal step," he told.

The next day these video shootings were shown on TV channels, he added.

"I was in shock when reading that the Armenians provided a corridor for civilians, but then the soldiers used machine gun to kill all those people," said Kravets.

"It`s a pain and tragedy of all Azerbaijan. I don`t need any proof. I have seen it with my own eyes ", said the witness of the tragedy.

The Khojaly genocide is one of the most terrible and tragic pages of the Azerbaijani history.

On February 25-26, 1992, the Armenian armed forces committed an act of genocide against the population of the Azerbaijani town of Khojaly.

This tragedy became the largest massacre in the course of Nagorno-Karabakh war between Armenia and Azerbaijan.

More than 613 people were killed, 1,000 civilians became invalid during Khojaly genocide.

As many as 106 women, 63 children, 70 old men were killed while 1,275 peace residents were taken hostages.

The fate of 150 of them remains unknown.

A lot of civilians were killed with special cruelty.

The murderers cut people's head, extracted eyes of children and even buried them alive.

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