Azernews.Az

The Azerbaijani town of Khojaly, which is painfully remembered by the horrid scenes of a massacre committed by Armenians in 1992, will be twinned with Lidice in the Czech Republic. A relevant protocol will be signed in Lidice on February 26 when Khojaly commemorates the 18th anniversary of its genocide which saw hundreds of civilians brutally killed, the Azerbaijani-Czech society reported.
Lidice experienced the same destiny when it was razed to the ground by the Nazis in 1942.
The signing ceremony, to be co-organized by the Society and the Azerbaijani embassy in Prague, will bring together lawmakers from both countries, the Czech minister of culture, representatives of the Azerbaijani diaspora and diplomats based in the Czech Republic.
The ceremony will also feature a Heydar Aliyev Foundation-made photo exhibition and documentary on the Armenia-Azerbaijan Upper (Nagorno) Garabagh conflict.
Earlier this month Lidice’s government decided to name one of the streets in the city after Khojaly.
Armenia and Azerbaijan waged a war in the early 1990s. On February 25-26, 1992, Armenian forces attacked unarmed civilians in Khojaly with the support of Russian troops. 613 people were brutally killed, while 1,275 taken captive, 487 became handicapped and 150 remain missing. Overall, the war claimed some 30,000 lives and displaced about one million Azerbaijanis. Armenia has been occupying over 20% of Azerbaijan’s internationally recognized territory since then. The ceasefire accord was signed in 1994, but peace talks have been largely fruitless so far.
Lidice, located just north-west of Prague, is built on the site of a previous village of the same name which was completely destroyed by German forces in the spring of 1942. On June 10, 1942, all 192 men over 16 years of age from the village were murdered on the spot by the Germans. The rest of the population was sent to Nazi concentration camps.*