Azernews.Az

By Sara Rajabova

Residents of the villages located near the frontline were the main victims of the recent skirmishes on the contact line of Armenian-Azerbaijani troops.

Due to the frequent ceasefire violations by Armenian armed forces, the villagers went through great difficulties, as constant shelling of their homes hampered their daily lives.

The residents of these villages earn their life by farming. However, the ceasefire violations make it impossible to work on their lands, take their cattle for grazing, as well as use the water of the rivers originating from Armenia.

The Armenians pollute the rivers by poising them with toxic waste of the plants.

The pollution of the water sources inflicts heavy damages on villagers' households and makes it impossible for them to use rivers' water for livestock and domestic purposes.

With such tactics, the Armenians aim to force the residents of the border villages to leave their homes.

The Armenian aggressors don't hesitate to fire at the civilians, who live in the villages located near the frontline. They frequently wound the villagers in their home or on their farms.

Recently, the Armenian armed forces injured three children while they were playing in their homes' yard.

A well-known Lithuanian journalist and representative of the International Fund for Eurasia Press in Lithuania, Richardas Lapaytis who visited the Azerbaijani villages located near the frontline said the Armenians want to evacuate the frontline villages from their residents.

"They think of nothing new. I remember that after the Khojaly massacre in 1992, when the punitive measures were carried out to destroy the civilian population, people had no choice but to leave their native lands. Alas, this tactic is tested again," Lapaytis said in an interview with Day.Az website.

After visiting the border villages, he stressed that the people, who live near the Armenian positions face great difficulties. He said many years have passed since the beginning of the conflict however, the Armenian armed forces continue to kill civilians- the elderly, women and children.

In mid-July, the Armenian militaries killed a resident of Azerbaijan's Tartar region while he was fishing in Tartar River in the Ashagi Chayli village.

"They kill people, who possess no threat to them. They want to destroy the hope of Azerbaijanis to return home. The most striking thing is that, despite all the threats, people from the frontline villages are becoming stronger day by day. None of them is going to leave their lands," Lapaytis said.

He added that he was impressed to see how friendly the residents of frontline villages were to each other.

Armenian armed forces aggravated tensions along the frontline by attacking the Azerbaijani positions. Armenia began to escalate the tensions on the border areas on July 31. Sporadic fighting has continued ever since. Thirteen Azerbaijani servicemen were killed and several others injured during the clashes between two sides.

Armenian forces retreated after fierce fighting and suffering from heavy losses. Armenia hasn't released yet the exact number of casualties.

The bloody war, which flared up in the late 1980s due to Armenia's territorial claims against its South Caucasus neighbor left displaced 700,000 civilians of Nagorno-Karabakh and the regions adjoining it, as well as the regions bordering with Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh without homes.

They are temporarily settled in more than 1,600 settlements across 62 cities and regions of Azerbaijan.

Moreover, 250,000 Azerbaijanis were expelled from Armenia and became refugees due to Armenia's ethnic cleansing policy after the emergence of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict with Azerbaijan. The Azerbaijanis who had displaced from their homes as a result of the brutal war were forced to live in refugee camps, tents and wagons in very difficult conditions.