Thirty-two years after the Sumgait massacre, the Azerbaijani authorities continue their policy of inciting hatred and xenophobia against Armenians, the Artsakh Foreign Ministry said in a statement.
Thirty-two years ago, on February 27-29, 1988, the authorities of the Azerbaijani SSR perpetrated massacre and forced deportation of the Armenian population in the city of Sumgait, accompanied by atrocities committed with unprecedented cruelty.
The three-day mass
beatings, killings and violent acts were the response of the
authorities of Baku to the peaceful and legitimate demands of the
Armenians of Artsakh (Karabakh) to realize their inalienable
right to self-determination.
“There is ample evidence that the massacres of
Armenians in Sumgait were thoroughly prepared and planned by the
Azerbaijani authorities. Speaking at the rallies held on the eve of the
massacres, high-ranking representatives of the city authorities called on the
crowd to punish the Armenians and demanded to kill and to deport them from
Sumgait and from entire Azerbaijan,” the Foreign Ministry said.
“Amid the obvious
inaction of the authorities and law enforcement bodies, as well as guided by
the latters, hundreds of Azerbaijanis in Sumgait, inspired by the calls
for hatred and violence against Armenians,
started unimpeded attacks on the apartments of the Armenians
living in Sumgait, having the lists of addresses at their disposal,” the
Ministry added.
“The impunity of the real organizers and perpetrators of
the crimes against humanity committed in Sumgait created a fertile ground
for the ethnic cleansing of Armenians throughout the Azerbaijani SSR in
the subsequent years – in Kirovabad, Baku and a number of other
Armenian-populated cities. Thousands of Armenians became victims of this
policy, and hundreds of thousands became refugees,” the statement
continues.
Unfortunately, the Ministry said, the Azerbaijani authorities, continue their policy of
inciting hatred and xenophobia against Armenians, heroizing and glorifying
the Azerbaijani officer who brutally killed an Armenian officer
in Hungary in 2004.
“Another manifestation
of such a policy became the rewarding of the Azerbaijani officer by
the President of Azerbaijan for beheading a serviceman of the Artsakh
Defense Army during the April war of 2016 unleashed against the Republic of
Artsakh, as well as the gross violations of the norms of humanitarian law and
the war crimes committed by the Azerbaijani armed forces,” the
Artsakh Foreign Ministry said.
It called on the international community to condemn and give a clear and unequivocal assessment to
the genocidal actions committed by the Azerbaijani authorities against the
peaceful Armenian population, which will not only prevent the repetition of
such atrocities in the future, but will also help to heal the situation in
Azerbaijan.
