Azernews.Az

39 persons are wanted over their involvement in the Khojaly massacre of Azerbaijanis committed by Armenian armed forces during the Karabakh war 20 years ago, Azerbaijani Military Prosecutor’s Office official Mehman Poladov has said.

18 of those individuals were servicemen of the USSR defense ministry’s military regiment, eight were employees of the Khankandi and Askaran regions’ interior bodies, five others - other government officials, and eight civilians.

On February 25-26, 1992, Armenian armed forces invaded Khojaly, a town located in Azerbaijan’s Nagorno Karabakh region, with the aid of servicemen and military machinery of the Soviet 366th regiment. During the attack, 613 people, including underage children and women, were brutally killed and hundreds of others disabled. 1,275 people were captured, including 150 whose fate is still unknown, and 5,379 people were ousted from their homes.

Poladov, a senior investigator at the Military Prosecutor’s Office department for grave crimes, told a news briefing that 3,000 people affected by the massacre have given testimony. Also, damage totaling over $170 million was inflicted to the Azerbaijani government and citizens as a result of attacks and plundering in Khojaly, he added.

Azerbaijani Ombudsperson Elmira Suleymanova has issued a statement to international organizations over the 20th anniversary of the Khojaly massacre urging to bring to book the Armenian terrorists responsible for the mass killings and their backers.

The Karabakh conflict emerged in 1988 over Armenia’s territorial claims. The ensuing war claimed some 30,000 lives and displaced up to a million Azerbaijanis. About 20 percent of Azerbaijani territory has been occupied by Armenian armed forces since a ceasefire was signed in 1994. Peace talks, brokered by Russia, France and the U.S. through the OSCE Minsk Group, have been largely fruitless so far.

This story is published by AzerNEWS Weekly under a project funded by the Foundation for State Assistance to the Development of the Media under the President of the Azerbaijan Republic.