Several NGOs in Armenia and Nagorno Karabakh have issued an appeal to the international community for the protection of the rights of Armenian refugees from Azerbaijan and Nagorno Karabakh.

The NGOs also wrote to PACE member states, requesting they recognize the independence of Nagorno Karabakh and the right of Armenian refugees to return to Nagorno Karabakh.

According to the data of the undersigned organizations, because of the forced deportation of Armenians from Sumgait, Kirovabad (Ganja), Baku, and other cities of Azerbaijan, about 500,000 Armenians had to leave the country from 1988-1991 and immigrated to European countries, Russia and the United States.

About 360,000 Armenian refugees from Azerbaijan settled in Armenia and Nagorno Karabakh.

The NGOs noted that due to the 2020 war in Nagorno Karabakh, all Armenian residents of the towns of Shushi and Hadrut and nearby areas were forced to leave their homes after their capture by the Azerbaijani army.

They pointed out that ongoing anti-Armenian rhetoric in Azerbaijan, ongoing hostilities and sporadic attacks and their consequences, questionable measures of security guarantees, which are temporary in nature to begin with, threaten people’s safety and ability to live their lives.

The current situation has resulted in a consistent migration flow from the Nagorno Karabakh, thus driving out Armenians from the lands in which they’ve lived for centuries.

“Given all this, as well as the prehistory of the conflict since Stalin's decision to transfer Nagorno Karabakh in 1920 to Azerbaijan, as well as the cruel injustice against the Armenian population of Nagorno Karabakh and Azerbaijan, the NGOs  have requested that all direct victims of this conflict, namely the Armenians from Azerbaijan and Nagorno Karabakh, be given the opportunity to return to their historical homeland in Nagorno Karabakh, including the Shushi and Hadrut areas,” the appeal reads.

“The precondition for the restoration of justice and respect for the rights of all Armenian refugees must be based on the understanding that this ethno-political conflict can be resolved only on condition of the sovereignty and unprecedented recognition of the independence of Nagorno Karabakh,” the NGOs write.

The organizations state that the mass killings and pogroms in Sumgait, Kirovabad (Ganja), Baku, and other cities of Azerbaijan in the 1990s, wars, which were unleashed in Nagorno Karabakh by Azerbaijan with the aim to eradicate Armenians from Nagorno Karabakh in the 90s, the brutal beatings, barbaric murders, rapes, war and civil crimes in 2016 and 2020, prove that Armenians cannot safely and securely coexist under Azerbaijani control.

Refugee Voice, Advocacy and Rights Protection NGO. Chairperson Oksana Musaelyan. Armenia

Association of Refugee Women, Chairman Ruzanna Avakyan. Nagorno Karabakh

Union of Refugees in the Name of Justice, Snezhana Tamrazyan. Nagorno Karabakh

Our House-Armenia, Assistant to the Chairman, Rima Abrahamyan, Armenia

Memory Dignity Justice Association, Chairman Garen Bagdasarian, USA