By Mark Dovich
Azerbaijan’s near-total blockade of Nagorno-Karabakh entered its ninth month Tuesday.
Isolation from the outside world has pushed Nagorno-Karabakh’s roughly 120,000 Armenians to the brink of famine. CivilNet’s team in Nagorno-Karabakh continues to report severe and widespread shortages of electricity, food, medications, natural gas, and water.
In August, the former chief prosecutor at the International Criminal Court said the humanitarian crisis unfolding in Nagorno-Karabakh could be considered an act of genocide and called on the powerful United Nations Security Council to intervene.
“Starvation is the invisible genocide weapon,” Luis Moreno Ocampo wrote in a widely publicized report.
The situation on the ground
On Tuesday, a single truck belonging to the Russian Red Cross Society with desperately needed humanitarian supplies reached Nagorno-Karabakh, marking the first aid delivery to the region in nearly three months.
The supplies reportedly include 1,000 food packages, 200 hygiene kits, and 270 sets of pillows and blankets. It was not immediately clear when or how the aid would be distributed.
Azerbaijan continues to block convoys of trucks with aid donated by the governments of Armenia and France from entering Nagorno-Karabakh.
Since the beginning of the month, Nagorno-Karabakh residents have been able to buy bread only using state-issued ration coupons that entitle each person to just half a loaf of bread per day.
The authorities in Stepanakert began issuing food coupons in January to allow people to buy small stocks of dry goods and cooking oil every month, but this is the first time bread is also being rationed.
Since the blockade began, Nagorno-Karabakh has seen a substantial uptick in the number of deaths due to cancer, cardiovascular diseases, and strokes, as well as surges in cases of anemia, fainting, and high blood pressure.
What’s the context?
Tensions between Armenia and Azerbaijan are approaching a boiling point.
“The situation is tense because Azerbaijan has a certain concentration of troops on the Armenia-Azerbaijan border and around Nagorno-Karabakh,” Armenian Prime Minister Nikol said in an interview with Armenian public television Monday evening.
Videos continue to spread on social media appearing to show Azerbaijan moving troops and military equipment. CivilNet has not been able to independently verify or geolocate the footage.
Meanwhile, open-source flight trackers are showing a surge in cargo transfers to Azerbaijan from Israel and Turkey, two of the country’s main arms suppliers.
Pashinyan told world leaders over the weekend he was “ready and willing to hold urgent talks” with Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev to de-escalate tensions.
What’s the background?
Azerbaijan’s blockade of Nagorno-Karabakh began last December, when a group of self-styled environmental activists set up a roadblock on the Lachin corridor, the sole overland route linking the region with Armenia. Many of them were later revealed to be connected with the Azerbaijani government.
In April, Azerbaijani border guards in effect formalized the blockade by setting up a checkpoint along the corridor in violation of the 2020 ceasefire declaration, which says Russian peacekeepers should control the route.
Since then, the guards have only allowed a limited number of vehicles belonging to the International Red Cross and Russian peacekeepers to travel between Nagorno-Karabakh and Armenia.
In February, a United Nations court ordered Azerbaijan to “ensure unimpeded movement” between Nagorno-Karabakh and Armenia, but the International Court of Justice has no enforcement powers to back up its rulings.
The Security Council has convened twice to discuss the blockade, once last December and again in August, but has so failed to issue a binding resolution on the matter.
