Weekly update
26 March
Since March 8, 2022, over 100,000 people living in Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh) have been deprived of natural gas and heating. According to evnreport.com the main pipeline supplying gas to Artsakh from Armenia was damaged in the vicinity of Azerbaijani military positions in Shushi, which has been under Azerbaijani control since the end of the 2020 Artsakh War.[1] The Azerbaijani side did not allow Armenians or Russian peacekeepers to take part in fixing the pipeline; it restored the gas supply on March 19, but only for two days. On March 21, 2022, the entire population of Artsakh was again deprived of gas and heating.[2] In March, the weather conditions in Artsakh are harsh; the temperature is below freezing, and it has been snowing heavily. The lack of gas supply also affects the capacity of local bakeries to bake bread, hence creating a shortage. School classes have been suspended, as there is no heating. As a result, Artsakh is facing a real and serious humanitarian disaster, deliberately caused by Azerbaijan as part of their well-documented policy of ethnic cleansing and Armenophobia promoted and encouraged by state authorities.
https://evnreport.com/spotlight-karabakh/azerbaijans-ongoing-policy-of-ethnic-cleansing-in-nagorno-karabakh/
25 March
While the world’s attention is fixated on the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Azerbaijan has escalated its aggression against the Armenian land and people of Artsakh, also known as Nagorno-Karabakh, in the South Caucasus. In line with providencemag.com Artsakh is on the verge of a humanitarian catastrophe that Azerbaijan intentionally created. In a speech posted on March 15 on its Twitter account addressing the international community, the human rights ombudsman of Artsakh, Gegham Stepanyan, said, “Thousands of Armenians living in Artsakh are regularly subjected to terroristic and genocidal acts carried out by Azerbaijan every day.”All of these human rights abuses are taking place almost daily while Artsakh is still trying to mend its wounds from the unprovoked and unjustified war that Azerbaijan launched against it in 2020. The Azeri government has not been brought to account for the war crimes and crimes against humanity it committed during the 2020 war, such as intentionally attacking civilians, murder, torture, taking of hostages, and extensive destruction of property.
https://providencemag.com/2022/03/azerbaijan-escalates-aggression-armenians-artsakh/
24 March
“One war doesn’t make you forget another war,” François-Xavier Bellamy, a French member of the European Parliament, said on March 10. According to wsj.com while the world’s eyes are on Ukraine, the European Parliament still found time this month to condemn Azerbaijan’s war against Armenia’s sacred past. This solidarity is encouraging but insufficient. On February 3 the Azerbaijani government announced that it would target hundreds of sacred sites that bear witness to Armenian Christian history in the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region. “A working group of specialists,” pro-government media quoted culture minister Anar Karimov as saying, “has been set up to remove the fictitious traces written by Armenians.”
https://www.wsj.com/articles/a-vicious-circle-of-cultural-erasure-azerbaijan-armenia-culture-muslim-christian-sites-11648151998
23 March
Following the first disruption of the supply on 8 March the EU encouraged Azerbaijan’s active engagement on the matter, which led to repair works and the resumption of the gas supply on 19 March. According to eeas.europa.eu there is an urgent need to ensure the immediate resumption of the gas supply to the affected local population, in particular in the context of the dire weather conditions, and the EU calls on the authorities in control to allow this to happen. The European Union is closely following this and other developments in the region and will continue its engagement towards sustainable peace and stability for the South Caucasus.
https://eeas.europa.eu/delegations/armenia/113318/node/113318_en
22 March
The Human Rights Defenders (HRD) of Armenia and Artsakh issued the following statement today regarding Azerbaijan’s repeated closing of the natural gas supply to Karabakh. In line with hetq.am an instrument of “petty revenge” has been discovered for the Azerbaijani policy of ethnic cleansing of Armenians of Artsakh. Yesterday at night, yet again the Azerbaijani side deliberately stopped the operation of the only gas pipeline supplying gas from Armenia to Artsakh. The gas supply of Artsakh was disrupted for the first time on March 8, due to an alleged accident, Afterwards, the Azerbaijani side did not allow experts from Artsakh to approach the area of the “accident”, which was located under their (Azerbaijani) control. From that moment on it has become obvious that the state policy of Armenophobia of Azerbaijan had discovered yet another method to pressure the Armenians of Artsakh.
https://hetq.am/en/article/142538
21 March
The opposition Pativ Unem bloc of the Armenian parliament is seeking to stipulate by law that the Prime Minister and the Minister of Foreign Affairs present periodical reports to parliament regarding foreign policy, negotiations and security affairs. According to armenpress.am Pativ Unem lawmaker Hayk Mamijanyan introduced the respective bill on amending the Rules of Procedure of the National Assembly during parliamentary hearings. He argued that the purpose of the bill is to avoid parliament being sidelined during the decision-making of priority negotiations issues. Mamijanyan explained that their bill seeks to establish that the Prime Minister and the Foreign Minister will file a classified report on strategic matters to parliament every 6 and 3 months respectively. After receiving the reports, lawmakers will be entitled to summon the PM and FM for a closed-format hearing if 25% of the total number of lawmakers seek to do so.
https://armenpress.am/eng/news/1078426
20 March
Baroness Cox states in politicshome.com “The nature of my work often requires me to enter war zones.For four decades, I have crossed borders, sometimes illegally, to deliver humanitarian aid and to stand in solidarity with people under fire. One might expect that, after so many years, my heart would become hardened to such suffering. Yet when the Russian invasion began, my heart broke again. The profound grief of Ukrainians is impossible to fathom. Each new day, we are exposed to further suffering. More bombs. More killings. More displacement. Column inches are filled with reflections of our collective sense of horror, as we try to process the sheer inhumanity of war and the invasion’s broader geopolitical significance. Yet to date, no attention has been paid to a small but very significant enclave in the South Caucasus, over 1,000 miles away from Ukraine, currently under the protection of Russian troops.”
https://www.politicshome.com/thehouse/article/with-the-worlds-eyes-on-ukraine-azerbaijan-is-taking-full-advantage
19 March
In the Summer of 2015 documentary photographer Gilad Sade set on a mission to discover one of the least visited destinations in the world: Nagorno Karabakh's breakaway region. For more than 5 years he documented the life of the people living in the isolated magnificent mountains also known as Republic of Artsakh. According to kickstarter.com Portrait of Paradise Lost documentary photo book is anything but ordinary. It contains unique photos, quotes from the local people, personal notes and stories from the journalist's diary, taken in years of exploration in a country that officially doesn't exist. The mixed media files added to the project allow deep diving into the story. With voice records, videos and the photos that are printed on uncoated paper, many senses are touched on your journey into the places that will never be the same again. On top, the book includes introductions written by academics to give the viewer different perspectives of the story.
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/lenabooks/portrait-of-paradise-lost
Sources: evnreport.com, providencemag.com, wsj.com, eeas.europa.eu, hetq.am, armenpress.am, www.politicshome.com, kickstarter.com