Azernews.Az

By Sara Rajabova

The eighth session of the Parliamentary Union of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation held in Sudan's capital, Khartoum, adopted a resolution recognizing as genocide the Khojaly massacre committed against Azerbaijanis by Armenians during the 1990s war, the headquarters of the Youth Forum of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC YF) in Istanbul said Wednesday.

The organization brings together representatives of the parliaments of 51 OIC member countries and meets every two years in one of the countries of Africa, Asia or the Arab region.

Under the section devoted to the "Justice for Khojaly" international campaign, the Khojaly tragedy is recognized as genocide committed by Armenian armed forces against Azerbaijani civilians, and is labeled a crime against humanity.

Also, the resolution "demands justice against the perpetrators of the Khojaly massacre" and attaches great importance to the activities of the "Justice for Khojaly" campaign, which was initiated by Leyla Aliyeva, General Coordinator of the Islamic Conference Youth Forum for Dialogue and Cooperation.

The resolution, adopted unanimously by the speakers and members of the parliaments of the OIC member states, urges support for the campaign and to give proper legal assessment of the tragedy.

It is noteworthy that the 39th session of the OIC Foreign Ministers, held in November last year in Djibouti, adopted a resolution on the initiative of the OIC YF, recognizing the Khojaly tragedy as genocide and a crime against humanity.

The OIC member states and bodies were then called to actively participate in and support the activity of the campaign and make an effort for recognition of this genocide as a crime against humanity internationally.

Besides, the parliaments of Pakistan and Mexico have recognized the Khojaly massacre as genocide.

Since a brutal war that concluded with the signing of a fragile cease-fire in 1994, Armenian armed forces have occupied 20 percent of Azerbaijan's territory, including Nagorno-Karabakh and seven surrounding regions. Peace talks, brokered by Russia, France and the U.S., the co-chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group, have been mostly fruitless so far.

The town of Khojaly was situated within the administrative borders of the Nagorno-Karabakh region. Its population constituted over 7,000 people. Because of its communication advantage of having a civilian airport, just before the start of Nagorno-Karabakh conflict it had become a shelter for refugee Meskhet Turks who fled the bloody inter-ethnic clashes in Central Asia as well as Azerbaijani refugees deported from Armenia.

Late into the night of February 25, 1992, the town came under intensive fire from the town of Khankendi and Askeran already occupied by Armenian forces. At night the Armenian armed forces supported by the ex-Soviet 366th regiment completed the surrounding of the town already isolated due to ethnic cleansing of the Azerbaijani population of its neighboring regions. The joint forces occupied the town, which was ruined by heavy artillery shelling.

Under these conditions the town's residents stepped into the darkness of the night to be met along the way by an ambush of Armenian forces. Several thousand fleeing civilians were ambushed in several locations and, faced with heaving shooting, they tried to find refuge in the nearby forests and mountainous areas. However, punitive teams of the so-called NK defense army, after eliminating a handful of policemen accompanying the refugees, reached the unprotected civilians to slaughter them, mutilating and scalping some bodies as the notorious Karabakh war "trophies".

In just a few hours, 613 civilians were killed, including 106 women, 70 elderly and 83 children. A total of 1,000 civilians were disabled. 56 people were killed with outrageous brutality, eight families were totally exterminated, and 25 children lost both parents, while 130 children lost at least one parent, in what became the most brutal crackdown on civilians during the three years of the conflict's military phase. Moreover, 1,275 innocent people were taken hostage, while the fate of 150 remains unknown.