Azernews.Az

By Sara Rajabova

Thirty four Azerbaijanis are held in captivity in Armenia and in the occupied Nagorno-Karabakh region of Azerbaijan, said Firudin Sadigov, Head of the Working Group of the State Commission on Prisoners of War, Hostages and Missing Persons.

Sadigov said these people have been registered since 1999 by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC). “International organizations registered 50 people held in captivity by the Armenians. The bodies of 16 captives were transferred to Azerbaijan, but the fate of 34 people remains unknown,” Sadigov said.

He noted that the Armenians say that they are not in Armenia and they do not know anything about their fate, however, these persons have been registered by the international organizations.

Sadigov went on to say that after inspecting the bodies of 16 people, it was found that they were killed by a firearm at close range. “The Armenian side assures that they were allegedly killed while trying to escape or died from disease. However, these statements raise many questions,” Sadigov said.

He also added that today the commission is working to determine the fate of other people to set them free.

As of November 1, 2014, the number of Azerbaijanis taken captive, hostage, or being lost stood at 4,016 including 3,256 servicemen and 758 civilians and it's unknown whether the remaining two were civilians or servicemen.

Among the missing civilians, 59 are children (17 girls), 254 women, and 351 elderly people (154 women). Among 4,016 people who have gone missing, 877 are reported to have been taken either captive or hostage. During the conflict, 1,419 people were released (347 female, 1,072 male, including 207 children, 287 elderly people).

The analysis of data received by the Azerbaijani State Commission on Prisoners of War, Hostages and Missing Persons showed that 554 people (104 women, 449 men) were found out to have either been killed in captivity or died of various reasons. Among them, only the names of 137 people are known, while 75 others have not yet been identified.

The bloody war, which flared up in the late 1980s due to Armenia's territorial claims against its South Caucasus neighbor, left displaced thousands of Azerbaijani civilians of Nagorno-Karabakh and the regions adjoining it, as well as the regions bordering with Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh.

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

As a result of the military aggression of Armenia, over 20,000 Azerbaijanis were killed, almost 100,000 were injured, and 50,000 were disabled.

The UN Security Council has passed four resolutions on Armenian withdrawal from the Azerbaijani territory, but they have not been enforced to this day.