Defence Ministry makes public Azerbaijan's casualties in Karabakh war

3 December 2020 15:33 (UTC+04:00)

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By Vafa Ismayilova

The Defence Ministry has stated on its website that 2,783 Azerbaijani servicemen, who fought for the country's territorial integrity, were killed in the Nagorno-Karabakh war.

The work to identify 103 servicemen through the DNA analysis is underway. More than a hundred Azerbaijani servicemen are considered missing. The necessary measures are being taken to identify them and inform their families. Presently, 1,245 Azerbaijani servicemen are being treated in hospitals, the ministry said on December 3.

The Defence Ministry reiterated that in response to Armenia’s military aggression against Azerbaijan, on September 27, 2020, the Azerbaijani armed forces under the command of Commander-in-Chief Ilham Aliyev launched a counter-offensive operation to liberate the Azerbaijani lands from the Armenian occupation. The personnel of the Azerbaijani armed forces fought heroically and valiantly in the second Armenia-Azerbaijan Nagorno-Karabakh War, inflicting crushing blows on the Armenian armed forces.

Complex engineering fortifications and bunker systems built by Armenia over the years in the occupied Azerbaijani lands were destroyed. Having broken through several echelons and densely mined defensive lines, Azerbaijani servicemen liberated the Azerbaijani lands from occupation, the ministry said.

The 44 days of war ended with the Russian brokered peace deal signed on November 10 by the Azerbaijani, Russian and Armenian leaders. Under the peace agreement Azerbaijan’s Kalbajar, Aghdam and Lachin regions were vacated by the Armenians by December 1. The agreement also envisages the return of Azerbaijani IDPs to Azerbaijan’s Nagorno-Karabakh and the seven adjacent regions under the control of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.

The peace agreement ended the 30-years-old conflict between Baku and Yerevan over Azerbaijan’s Nagorno-Karabakh region that along with the seven adjacent districts came under the occupation of Armenian armed forces in the war in the early 1990s. For about three decades, Armenia failed to implement the UN Security Council resolutions demanding the withdrawal of the Armenian troops, which was the main obstacle to the resolution of the conflict.