Azernews.Az

By Rashid Shirinov

The return of internally displaced persons to the liberated Jojug Marjanli village of Azerbaijan’s Jabrayil region continues, Chairman of Azerbaijan’s State Committee for Refugees and IDPs Rovshan Rzayev said on June 11.

He made the remarks at a meeting with Rupert Ainley, head of the Eastern Europe and Central Asia Directorate of the British Foreign Ministry.

Rzayev informed Ainley in detail about the work carried out in solving the social problems and improving the living conditions of more than one million IDPs of Azerbaijan, who were expelled from their native lands as a result of the Armenian occupation.

The State Committee chairman noted that President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev has taken significant steps to address the social problems and improve the living conditions of refugees and IDPs. He added that the First Vice-President Mehriban Aliyeva also carries out consistent and purposeful activities in this direction, as a result of which about 300,000 refugees were provided with new apartments.

Rzayev also said that the IDPs from the Jojug Marjanli village, who were temporarily settled in different regions of Azerbaijan, have begun to return to their homes. In the first stage, 50 houses were built in the village, and in the second stage, internally displaced persons were resettled in 50 of the 100 houses built.

Ainley, in turn, said that the United Kingdom attaches great importance to strengthening strategic cooperation with Azerbaijan and noted that the UK is interested in the implementation of projects related to IDPs in Azerbaijan.

The sides also discussed issues of mutual interest during the meeting.

Jojug Marjanli was liberated by the Azerbaijani Armed Forces from the Armenian occupation in April 2016. In late January 2017, President Ilham Aliyev ordered to restore the village.

During the first phase of restoration, 50 private houses, a school, mosque, electric substation, hydrometeorological station, highway and other relevant infrastructure were constructed in Jojug Marjanli. The village was provided with gas, electricity and water supply. During the second phase of construction and restoration work and work on improvement and creation in Jojug Marjanli, new houses are built and infrastructure is enhanced.

Due to the ethnic cleansing policy carried out by Armenia and the Armenian occupation of Nagorno-Karabakh and seven surrounding regions of Azerbaijan, the number of refugees and IDPs in Azerbaijan hit more than 1.2 million. With a population of about 9.8 million, Azerbaijan is among the countries carrying the highest IDP caseload in the world in per capita terms.

Thanks to the measures taken over the past 13 years, the level of poverty among IDPs in Azerbaijan decreased from 75 to 12 percent.

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

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