Khojaly Tragedy

KHOJALY TRAGEDY

INTRODUCTION ______2

EVIDENCE FROM INDEPENDENT Mass media reports ______5

SOURCES Re ports and doc u ments of non-gov ern men tal or ga ni za tions ______17

STATEMENTS AND RECORDS OF Congress man Dan Burton’s speech in the US House of Rep re sen ta tives ______19 STATE AGENCIES, OFFICIALS AND PARLIAMENTARIANS Letter of Britain’s Foreign and Com mon wealth Of fice to Vatan So ci ety ___21

ADDITIONAL SOURCES AND Charles van der Leeuw, Azerbaijan: REFERENCES A quest for identity: a short story ______21 Thomas de Waal, Black Gar den: Ar menia and Azerbaijan through peace and war ____21

Ednan Agaev, Azerbaijan: the next battle ground between EAST and WEST ____22

FORENSIC MEDICAL EXAMINATION Women ______23

REPORTS Men______30

Chil dren ______39

El derly ______42

TESTIMONIES OF THE INHABITANTS OF KHOJALY TAKEN HOSTAGE BY THE ARMENIAN SIDE ______43

CONCLUSION ______54

PHOTOS OF VICTIMS ______55 1 KHOJALY TRAGEDY

expel the Azerbaijanis from their lands. During INTRODUCTION this pe riod, the afore mentioned pol icy was imple mented sys tem at i cally and me thod i cally. After the sign ing of Gyulistan and Turkmanchai Thus, in 1920 the Ar meni ans de clared Zangezur trea ties in 1813 and 1828 re spec tively, a very and a number of other Azerbaijani lands to be rapid mass re set tle ment of the Arm eni ans in the part of the terri tory of the Arm enian So viet So- Azerbaijani lands and the subse quent arti ficial cial ist Re public. In 1923 they managed to se cure ter ri to rial di vi sion took place. the sta tus of the au ton omous province for the mountain ous part of Karabakh within the Between 1905 and 1907 the Ar meni ans car ried Azerbaijan SSR. Thus, the arti fi cial entity was out a series of large-scale bloody actions against created at the terri tory of Azerbaijan, while the the Azerbaijanis. The atroci ties be gan in Baku Azerbaijani pop ula tion living in the territory of and then ex tended over the whole of Azerbaijan Armenia at that time had not been granted and Azerbaijani villages in the terri tory of pres- similar rights. ent-day Ar me nia. Hun dreds of set tle ments were de stroyed and wiped from the face of the earth, On the pretext of reset tling the Arm eni ans com - and thousands of civil ians were barbarically ing from abroad, the Council of Min is ters of the killed. USSR adopted on 23 Decem ber 1947 and 10 March 1948 special de ci sions on the reset tle - Tak ing ad van tage of the sit u a tion fol low ing the ment of collec tive farm workers and the other First World War and the Febru ary and Oc to ber Azerbaijani pop u la tion from the Ar me nian SSR 1917 rev o lu tions in Rus sia, the Ar me ni ans be - to the Kura-Araks lowlands in the Azerbaijani gan to pur sue the imple menta tion of their plans SSR. Under these de ci sions, dur ing the pe riod under the ban ner of Bolshevism. Thus, under the be tween 1948 and 1953 more than 150,000 watch word of com bat ing coun ter-rev o lu tion ary Azerbaijanis were forc ibly reset tled from their el e ments, in March 1918 the Baku commune be- his tor i cal home lands – the moun tain ous re gions gan to im plem ent a plan aimed at elim inat ing the of Arm enia – to the then waterless steppes of Azerbaijanis from the whole of the Baku prov- Mugan and the Mil plateau. ince. Apart from Baku, solely be cause of their eth nic af fil i a tion, the thou sands of Azerbaijanis The current stage of the conflict between Arm e - were an ni hi lated also in the Shemakha and Guba nia and Azerbaijan may be regarded as having districts, as well as in Karabakh, Zangezur, formally begun on 20 Febru ary 1988, when the Nakhchivan, Lenkoran and other re gions of Soviet of the Peo ple’s Dep uties of the Nagorny Azerbaijan. In these areas, the civil ian popu la - Karabakh Au ton omous Province adopted a de ci - tion was exter mi nated en masse, villages were sion to pe ti tion to the Supreme Sovi ets of the burned and national cultural monuments were Azerbaijan SSR and the Ar menian SSR for the destroyed and obliterated. transfer of the prov ince from the former to the latter. Follow ing the es tablish m ent of the Soviet rule in Ar menia in late 1920, the Ar meni ans were pre - Before the adop tion of this de ci sion, namely al - sented with a real op portu nity to fulfill their ready at the end of 1987, the Azerbaijanis be - age-old dream of creat ing an Arm enian State on came subject of at tacks in Khankendi (dur ing the the terri to ries of other nations. Over the 70-years Soviet pe riod – Stepanakert) and Ar menia re - of Soviet rule, the Arm eni ans succeeded in ex- sulted in a flood of Azerbaijani refu gees and in - pand ing their ter ri tory at the ex pense of ter nally dis placed persons. Azerbaijan and using every possi ble means to 2 KHOJALY TRAGEDY In tro duc tion

On 22 Febru ary 1988 near the set tle ment of cal lead er ship. As a result, hundreds of the capi - Askeran on the Khankendi-Aghdam high way, tal resi dents were killed or wounded, muti lated the Ar meni ans opened fire on a peace ful demon - and sub jected to var i ous forms of physical stration by the Azerbaijanis pro testing against pressure. the above-mentioned de ci sion of the So viet of the Peo ple’s Dep uties of the Nagorny Karabakh In 1991 central law-en forcem ent agencies of the Au ton o mous Prov ince. Two Azerbaijani youths then USSR appre hended doz ens of the Ar menian lost their lives in con se quence, be coming the armed groups that op er ated out side Nagorny first victims of the conflict. Karabakh. Thus, the Chaykend vil lage of the Khanlar district of Azerbaijan was turned by the On 26-28 Febru ary 1988 twenty-six Ar meni ans Arme nian armed groups into a crimi nal hub from and Azerbaijanis were killed as a result of the which they bombed and shelled sur round ing vil - dis tur bances in Sumgait. It is nota ble that one of lages and roads, terror iz ing the local Azerbaijani the leading figures in these events was a certain popu la tion. From 1989 to 1991, in Chaykend and Edward Grigorian, an Arme nian and na tive of ad ja cent ar eas only 54 peo ple fell vic tim to the Sumgait, who was di rectly involved in the kill - Arme nian armed groups. In 1992 Azerbaijan re - ings and vi olence against the Ar meni ans and the gained its con trol over the Goranboy dis trict. pogroms in the Arme nian neigh bor hoods. By de- ci sion of the Crimi nal Di vi sion of the Su preme At the end of 1991 and the be gin ning of 1992 the Court of the Azerbaijan SSR dated 22 Decem ber con flict turned into a mil i tary phase. Tak ing ad - 1989, Grigorian was sentenced to 12 years’ im- van tage of the po lit i cal in sta bil ity as a re sult of pris onment. The Court found Grigorian to be one the dis so lu tion of the So viet Un ion and in ter nal of the orga niz ers of unrest and massa cres. Depo - squab bles in Azerbaijan, Ar me nia ini ti ated with si tions by witnesses and victims show that he the ex ter nal mil i tary as sis tance com bat had a list of flats in hab ited by the Ar meni ans operations in Nagorny Karabakh. and, to gether with three other Arme ni ans, called for repri sals against the Arm eni ans, in which he In Feb ru ary 1992, an un prec e dented mas sa cre took part person ally. His victim s (all Arm eni ans) was com mit ted against the Azerbaijani popu la - iden ti fied Grigorian as one of the or ga niz ers and tion in the town of Khojaly. This bloody tragedy, active figures in the vio lence. In fact, events in which be came known as the Khojaly geno cide, Sumgait, being neces sary to the Arm enian lead- in volved the ex ter mi na tion or cap ture of the er ship as a mean of launch ing an exten sive anti- thousands of Azerbaijanis; the town was razed to Azerbaijani cam paign and jus ti fy ing the en su ing the ground. Over the night from 25 to 26 Febru - aggressive actions against Azerbaijan, had been ary 1992 the Ar menian armed forces with the planned and prepared in advance. help of the in fantry guards reg i ment No. 366 of the form er USSR imple m ented the seizure of In 1988-1989 more than 200,000 Azerbaijanis Khojaly - a small town situ ated in the Nagorny were forced to live Ar menia. Dur ing the eth nic Karabakh re gion of the Re public of Azerbaijan cleansing at least 216 Azerbaijanis were killed. with the to tal area of 0.94 sq. km. and the pop ula - tion before the conflict of 23,757. On 20 Janu ary 1990 the So viet troops were brought into Baku to sup press the pop ular pro - The in hab it ants of Khojaly re mained in the town tests against the un just and prej udiced pol icy be fore the tragic night (about 2500 peo ple) tried pur sued by the leader ship of the for mer USSR, to leave their houses after the be gin ning of the as well as the incom petent per form ance of the lo- as sault in the hope to find the way to the near est

3 KHOJALY TRAGEDY In tro duc tion

tage, while the fate of 150 per sons re mains unknown to this day. In the course of the trag edy 487 in hab it ants of Khojaly were se verely maimed, in clud ing 76 chil dren not yet of age. 6 fam i lies were completely wiped out, 26 chil dren lost both par ents, and 130 chil dren one of their par ents. Of those who per ished, 56 per sons were killed with espe cial cruelty: by burning alive, scalp ing, be head ing, goug ing out of eyes, and bayoneting of pregnant women in the abdomen.

Ar me nian of fi cials deny their re spon si bil ity for the crimes com mitted during the conflict, in clud- ing against the pop ula tion of Khojaly, air ily fal - place pop ulated by the Azerbaijanis. But these si fy ing facts and shar ing own in ter pre ta tions of plans have failed. In vad ers de stroyed Khojaly them, which devi ate not only from re al ity but and with par tic u lar bru tal ity im ple mented car- also from el e men tary logic. Nev er the less, even nage over its peaceful population. the sub tlest propa ganda will never manage to disprove the facts that speak of a sit ua tion dia - Bru tal an ni hi la tion of hun dreds of blame less in - metri cally oppo site to that represented by the hab it ants of Khojaly was one of the most hei nous Armenian side. crimes dur ing the armed con flict in and around the Nagorny Karabakh re gion of the Re public of Apart from the con sid er able in for ma tion in pos - Azerbaijan. The Ar menian armed forces and for- session of the law-en forcem ent agencies of the eign mili tary units spared vir tu ally none of those Re pub lic of Azerbaijan, the re spon si bil ity of Ar - who had been un able to flee Khojaly and the sur - menia is doc umented also by numer ous in de - round ing area. As a re sult, 613 per sons were pendent sources and eyewit nesses of this killed, includ ing 106 women, 63 children and 70 tragedy. el derly peo ple. 1,275 in hab it ants were taken hos -

4 KHOJALY TRAGEDY

and killed before their parents’ eyes; two EVIDENCE FROM Azerbaijanis in na tional army uniform had their INDEPENDENT SOURCES eyes put out with screw driv ers.

The or ga nized na ture of the ex ter mi na tion of the MASS MEDIA REPORTS peo ple of Khojaly was fur ther ev i dent from the fact that the peaceful inhab it ants who fled the Azerbaijan Publish ing House, Baku, 1992 town in desper a tion to save their lives were killed out side it in pre vi ously pre pared am- “KHOJALY – THE LAST DAY” bushes. For ex ample, Elman Mamedov, chief of adm inis tra tion in Khojaly, reported that a large In the words of the jour nal ist Chingiz Mustafaev, group of people who had left Khojaly came un- among the dead were “doz ens upon doz ens of der heavy fire from Arme nian light and heavy chil dren be tween 2 and 15 years old, women and ma chine-guns and ar moured per son nel car ri ers old peo ple, in most cases shot at pointblank near the vil lage of Nakhichevanik. An other res i - range in the head. The po si tion of the bod ies in - dent of Khojaly, Sanubar Alekperova, said she di cated that the peo ple had been killed in cold would never for get the mountains of corpses of blood, calculatedly, with out any sign of a strug- women, chil dren and old peo ple near gle or of hav ing tried to es cape. Some had been Nakhichevanik, where they fell into an ambush: taken aside and shot sin gly; many had been in the car nage, her mother and her two daugh - killed as whole fam i lies at once. Some corpses ters, Sevinzh and Khidzhran, were killed and she dis played sev eral wounds, one of which was in - herself was wounded. Faced with this mass vari ably in the head, sug gest ing that the shoot ing-down of unarmed people, some of the wounded had been fin ished off. Some chil dren group made for the vil lage of Gyulably, but there were found with severed ears; the skin had been the Ar meni ans took some 200 people hos tage. cut from the left side of an el derly woman’s face; Among them was Dzhamil Mamedov; the Arm e - and men had been scalped. There were corpses ni ans tore out his nails, beat him about the legs that had clearly been robbed. The first time we and head and took away his grand son, and his ar rived at the scene of the shoot ings of 28 Febru - wife and daughter van ished with out trace. “had ary, ac com pa nied by two mil i tary he li cop ters, heard a lot about wars, about the cru elty of. the we saw from the air an open area about one kilo - Fascists, but the Arm eni ans were worse, kill ing metre across which was strewn with corpses five- and six-years-old chil dren, kill ing in nocent almost everywhere”. ci vil ians” said a French journal ist, Jean-Yves Junet, who visited the scene of this mass murder An inhab it ant of Khojaly, Djanan Orudjev, also of women, old peo ple, chil dren and de fenders of pro vided in forma tion on the many vic tims, Khojaly. chiefly women and children. His 16-years-old son was shot, and his 23-years-old daugh ter with One of the French journal ist’s Russian col- her twin chil dren and an other, 18-years-old leagues, V.Belykh, a cor re spon dent for the daugh ter who was preg nant, were taken hostage. news pa per Izvestia, re ported see ing bod ies with their eyes gouged out or ears cut off and bodies Saria Talybova, who wit nessed the bloody trag - that had been scalped or beheaded. edy as it un folded, watched as four Meskhetian Turks, ref ugees from Central Asia, and three The head of the Azerbaijan Defence Minis try’s Azerbaijanis were beheaded on the grave of an medi cal ser vice, Khanlar Hajiyev, was horri fied Arm enian soldier, and children were tortured by the evi dence of savage repri sals against the 5 KHOJALY TRAGEDY Ev i dence from in de pend ent sources

in hab it ants of Khojaly brought be fore him: a knew how many had been killed. guards man with his intes tines hang ing out, peo - ple with frost bite, a child whose leg had been Of seven bodies seen here today, two were chil - tom off by heavy ma chine-gun fire, a girl whose dren and three were women, one shot through the face had been slashed with a knife. chest at what appeared to be close range. An - other 120 ref ugees be ing treated at Agdam’s hos- Ma jor Leonid Kravets re ported that he had “per - pi tal in clude many with mul ti ple stab wounds. son ally seen about 200 bod ies» and that with him had been a lo cal po lice man who, «when he saw The Arme ni ans who at tacked Khojaly Tues day his four-years-old son ly ing among the dead with night “were shoot ing, shoot ing, shoot ing”, said his head split open, went out of his mind with Raisa Aslanova, who reached Agdam Wednes- grief”. day night. She said her hus band and a son-in-law were killed and her daugh ter was miss ing. The Wash ing ton Post, 28 Feb ru ary 1992 Among the ref ugees who fled here over the “NAGORNO-KARABAKH VICTIMS mountains from Nagorno-Karabakh were two BURIED IN AZERBAIJANI TOWN - Turkmen soldiers from form er Soviet Inte rior REFUGEES CLAIM HUNDREDS DIED IN Min is try forces who had taken refuge in Khojaly ARMENIAN ATTACK” after desert ing from their unit last Friday because, they said, Ar menian non-commis sioned By Thomas Goltz, Agdam, Azerbaijan, 27 Feb ru - offi cers had beaten them «for being Mus lims». ary The two desert ers claimed their form er unit, the Offi cials of the main mosque in this town just 366th Di vi sion, was sup port ing the Ar me nian east of the em battled enclave of Nagorno- mili tia men who cap tured Khojaly. They said Karabakh said they bur ied 27 bod ies to day, they tried to help women and chil dren es cape. brought from an Azerbaijani town in side the en - “We were bring ing a group through the moun- clave that was captured Wednesday by Arm e - tains when the Ar meni ans found us and opened nian militiamen. fire”, said Agamehmet Mutif, one of the desert - ers. “Twelve were killed”. Refu gees flee ing the fight ing in Khojaly, a town of 6,000 north east of the en clave’s cap i tal, The In de pend ent, 29 Feb ru ary 1992 Stepanakert, claimed that up to 500 peo ple, in - clud ing women and children, were killed in the By Helen Womack at tack. No in de pend ent es ti mate of deaths was avail able here. The Agdam mosque’s direc tor, Elif Kaban, a Reuter cor re spon dent in Agdam, Said Sadikov Muan, said refu gees from Khojaly re ported that after a massa cre on Wednesday, had reg is tered the names of 477 victims with his Azeris were burying scores of peo ple who died mosque since Wednesday. when Arme ni ans over ran the town of Khojaly, the second-big gest Azeri settle ment in the area. Offi cials in Baku, the capi tal of Azerbaijan, esti - “The world is turning its back on what’s hap pen - mated the deaths in Khojaly at 100, while Ar me- ing here. We are dy ing and you are just watch - nian of ficials in their capi tal, Yerevan, said only ing”, one mourner shouted at a group of two Azerbaijanis were killed in the attack. An of - journalists. ficial from Baku said here that his gov ern ment fears Azerbaijanis would turn against it if they 6 KHOJALY TRAGEDY Ev i dence from in de pend ent sources

The Sunday Times, 1 March 1992 caped slaugh ter, most with bul let in ju ries or deep stab wounds. “ARMENIAN SOLDIERS MASSACRE HUNDREDS OF FLEEING FAMILIES” Nor were they safe in Agdam. On Friday night rock ets fell on the city which has a popu la tion of By Thomas Goltz, Agdam, Azerbaijan 150,000, de stroy ing sev eral buildings and kill ing one per son. Sur vi vors re ported that Ar me nian sol diers shot and bay oneted more than 450 Azeris, many of The Times, 2 March 1992 them women and chil dren. Hun dreds, pos si bly thousands, were miss ing and feared dead. “CORPSES LITTER HILLS IN KARABAKH” The attack ers killed most of the soldiers and vol- unteers de fending the women and chil dren. They Anatol Lieven comes under fire while fly ing to then turned their guns on the ter ri fied refu gees. inves ti gate the mass killings of refu gees by Ar- The few survi vors later de scribed what hap- me nian troops pened: “That’s when the real slaughter be gan”, said Azer Hajiev, one of three soldiers to sur - As we swooped low over the snow-cov ered hills vive. “The Ar meni ans just shot and shot. And of Nagorno-Karabagh we saw the scattered then they came in and started carv ing up peo ple corpses. Ap par ently, the refu gees had been shot with their bay onets and knives”. down as they ran. An Azerbaijani film of the places we flew over, shown to journal ists after - “They were shoot ing, shoot ing, shoot ing”, ech - wards, showed doz ens of corpses ly ing in var i - oed Rasia Aslanova, who ar rived in Agdam with ous parts of the hills. other women and chil dren who made their way through Ar menian lines. She said her hus band, The Azerbaijanis claim that as many as 1000 Kayun, and a son-in-law were massa cred in front have died in a mass kill ing of Azerbaijanis flee- of her. Her daughter was still missing. ing from the town of Khodjaly, seized by Ar meni ans last week. A fur ther 4,000 are be lieved to One boy who arrived in Agdam had an ear sliced be wounded, frozen to death or missing. off. The civil ian heli cop ter’s job was to land in the The sur vi vors said 2000 others, some of whom mountains and pick up bod ies at sites of the mass had fled sepa rately, were still missing in the gru- kill ings. elling terrain; many could perish from their wounds or the cold. The ci vil ian he li cop ter picked up four corpses, and it was dur ing this and a pre vi ous mission that By late yes ter day, 479 deaths had been reg is - an Azerbaijani cam era man filmed the several tered at the morgue in Agdam, and 29 bod ies had dozen bod ies on the hillsides. been buried in the cem etery. Of the seven corpses I saw awaiting burial, two were children Back at the air field in Agdam, we took a look at and three were women, one shot through the the bod ies the ci vil ian he li cop ter had picked up. chest at point blank range. Two old men and small girl were covered with blood, their limbs contorted by the cold and rigor Agdam hospi tal was a scene of carnage and ter- mortis. They had been shot. ror. Doc tors said they had 140 pa tients who es - 7 KHOJALY TRAGEDY Ev i dence from in de pend ent sources

The Wash ing ton Times, 2 March 1992 its mil i tants had killed 1,000 peo ple in the Azerbaijani-pop ulated town of Khojaly last “ARMENIAN RAID LEAVES AZERIS week and had massa cred men, women and chil- DEAD OR FLEEING” dren fleeing the carnage across snow-cov ered mountain passes. About 1,000 of Khojaly’s 10,000 peo ple were massa cred by the Arm enian Army in Tuesdays But dozens of bod ies scat tered over the area lent at tack. Azerbaijani televi sion showed truckloads cre dence to Azerbaijani reports of a massa cre. of corpses be ing evac uated from the Khocaly area. Azerbaijani of ficials and journal ists who flew briefly to the re gion by he li cop ter brought back The New York Times, 3 March 1992 three dead chil dren with the backs of their heads blown off. They said shoot ing by Ar meni ans had “MASSACRE BY ARMENIANS BEING pre vented them from re triev ing more bodies. REPORTED” “Women and children had been scalped”, said Agdam, Azerbaijan, March 2 (Reuters) – The Assad Faradzhev, an aide to Nagorno- last of the for mer Soviet troops in the Cau ca sus Karabakh’s Azerbaijani Gov er nor. en clave of Nagorno-Karabakh be gan pull ing out today as fresh evi dence emerged of a massa cre of “When we be gan to pick up bod ies, they be gan ci vil ians by Ar me nian mil i tants. firing at us”.

The Itar-Tass press agency said the 366th Motor - The Azerbaijani mili tia chief in Agdam, Rashid ized Infan try Reg im ent had started its with- Mamedov, said: “The bod ies are lying there like drawal, in effect rem oving the last frail buffer flocks of sheep. Even the fas cists did noth ing sep a rat ing the re gion’s two war ring eth nic like this”. groups, Ar me ni ans and Azerbaijanis. Two trucks filled with bod ies The two sides made no attemp t to in ter fere, it added. Near Agdam on the outskirts of Nagorno-Karabakh, a Reuters pho tog ra pher, Nagorno-Karabakh is within the Re public of Frederique Lengaigne, said she had seen two Azerbaijan, but most of its popu la tion is Ar me- trucks filled with Azerbaijani bod ies. nian. “In the first one I counted 35, and it looked as Shell ing in town reported though there were alm ost as many in the second”, she said. “Some had their heads cut off, The Azerbaijani press agency Azerinform re - and many had been burned. They were all men, ported fresh Arm enian missile fire on the and a few had been wear ing khaki uni forms”. Azerbaijani-pop ulated town of Shusha in Nagorno-Karabakh on Sunday night. It said sev - Ethnic vio lence and econom ic cri sis threaten to eral peo ple had been wounded in an other at tack, tear apart the Common wealth of In de pend ent on the set tle ment of Venjali, early today. States, cre ated by 11 for mer Soviet re publics in Decem ber. The com monwealth has been pow er - The Re pub lic of Ar me nia re it er ated de ni als that less in the face of the ethnic hatred re kindled in

8 KHOJALY TRAGEDY Ev i dence from in de pend ent sources the age-old dis pute be tween Chris tian Ar menia a survi vor of the massa cre, said he saw up to 200 and Muslim Azerbaijan, which are members. peo ple shot down at the point we vis ited, and refugees who came by differ ent routes have also Four years of fight ing in Nagorno-Karabakh told of be ing shot at re peat edly and of leav ing a have killed 1,500 to 2,000 peo ple. The last trail of bodies along their path. Around the bod - week’s fighting has been the most savage yet. ies we saw were scattered posses sions, clothing and per son nel doc u ments. The bod ies them- The 366th Reg i ment, based in Stepanakert, the selves have been preserved by the bitter cold cap i tal of Nagorno-Karabakh, has been caught at which killed others as they hid in the hills and the center of fighting in which at least three of its forest after the massa cre. All are the bodies of or- soldiers were killed late last month. di nary peo ple, dressed in the poor, ugly clothing of workers. Speak ing to his Par lia ment in Yerevan, the Ar - me nian cap i tal, Pres i dent Levon Ter-Petrosyan Of the 31 we saw, only one police man and two criti cized the withdrawal from the enclave of the ap par ent na tional vol un teers were wear ing uni - com mon wealth’s last troops. form. All the rest were civil ians, includ ing eight women and three small chil dren. Two groups, “This reg i ment, though not in volved in mil i tary ap par ently fami lies, had fallen to gether, the chil - op er a tions, was a sta bi liz ing fac tor”, Mr. dren cradled in the women’s arms. Ter-Petrosyan said. Several of them, includ ing one small girl, had The Times, 3 March 1992 terri ble head inju ries: only her face was left. Sur- vi vors have told how they saw Ar meni ans shoot - “MASSACRE UNCOVERED” ing them point blank as they lay on the ground.

By Anatol Lieven The Times, 3 March 1992

More than sixty bod ies, in clud ing those of “BODIES MARK SITE OF KARABAGH women and chil dren, have been spot ted on hill - MASSACRE” sides in Nagorno-Karabakh, con firming claims that Ar me nian troops mas sa cred Azeri ref u gees. A local truce was enforced to allow the Hundreds are missing. Azerbaijanis to collect their dead and any refu - gees still hid ing in the hills and forest. All are the Scattered amid the withered grass and bushes bodies of or di nary peo ple, dressed in the poor, along a small val ley and across the hillside be- ugly clothing of workers. All the rest were civil - yond are the bodies of last Wednesday’s massa - ians, in clud ing eight women and three small cre by Arm enian forces of Azerbaijani refugees. chil dren. Two groups, ap par ently fam i lies, had fallen together, the children cradled in the In all, 31 bod ies could be counted at the scene. At women’s arms. Several of them, includ ing one least an other 31 have been taken into Agdam small girl, had terri ble head inju ries: only her over the past five days. These fig ures do not in - face was left. Sur vi vors have told how they saw clude civil ians reported killed when the Arm eni - Arme ni ans shoot ing them point blank as they lay ans stormed the Azerbaijani town of Khodjaly on on the ground. Tues day night. The fig ures also do not in clude other as yet undis cov ered bod ies Zahid Jabarov,

9 KHOJALY TRAGEDY Ev i dence from in de pend ent sources

BBC1 Morning News at 07:37, Tues day, 3 “Telman!” screamed one woman, beating her March 1992 breast fu ri ously over the body of her dead father, who lay on his back with his stiff right arm jut- BBC re porter was live on line and he claimed ting into the air. that he saw more than 100 bod ies of Azeri men, women and chil dren as well as a baby who are Those who re turned from a brief visit by he li cop - shot dead from their heads from a very short dis - ter to Khojaly, cap tured by the Ar meni ans last tance. week, said they had seen sim i lar sights - only more. One Russian jour nal ist said he had BBC1 Morning News at 08:12, Tuesday, 3 counted about 30 bod ies within a ra dius of 50 March 1992 yards from where the he li cop ter landed.

Very dis turb ing pic ture has shown that many ci- Arm enia has denied atroci ties or mass killings of vil ian corpses who were picked up from moun- Azeris af ter its well-armed irreg u lars captured tain. Reporter said he, cam era man and West ern Khojaly, the sec ond-big gest Azeri town in Journal ists have seen more than 100 corpses, Nagorno-Karabakh, last Wednesday. Azerbaijan who are men, women, chil dren, massa cred by says 1,000 peo ple were killed. Ar meni ans. They have been shot dead from their heads as close as 1 meter. Picture also has shown “Women and children had been scalped”, said nearly ten bodies (mainly women and children) Assad Faradzhev, an aide to Karabakh’s Azeri are shot dead from their heads. Azerbaijan gov er nor. claimed that more than 1000 civil ians massa cred by Ar me nian forces. Mr. Faradzhev said the heli copter, bear ing Red Cross markings and es corted by two MI-24 he li - The Wash ing ton Times, 3 March 1992 copters of the form er Soviet army, succeeded in pick ing up only the three chil dren be fore Arme - “ATROCITY REPORTS HORRIFY nian mili tants opened fire. “When we began to AZERBAIJAN” pick up bod ies, they started fir ing at us”, he said.

By Brian Killen, Agdam, Azerbaijan Mr. Faradzhev said they were on the ground for only 15 minutes. Dozens of bodies lay scat tered around the kill ing fields of Nagorno-Karabakh yes ter day, ev i dence “The com bat heli copters fired red flares to signal of the worst massa cre in four years of fighting that Ar meni ans were ap proach ing and it was over the disputed ter ritory. time to leave. I was ready to blow myself up if we were cap tured”, he said point ing to a gre nade in Azeri offi cials who returned from the scene to his coat pocket. this town about nine miles away brought back three dead chil dren, the backs of their heads Reuters pho tog ra pher Frederique Lengaigne saw blown off. two trucks full of Azeri corpses near Agdam.

At the lo cal mosque, six other bod ies lay “In the first one, I counted 35, and it looked as stretched out, fully clothed, with their limbs though there were al most as many in the sec ond. frozen in the po si tions in which they were killed. Some had their heads cut off and many had been Their faces were black from the cold. burned. They were all men, and a few had been

10 KHOJALY TRAGEDY Ev i dence from in de pend ent sources wear ing khaki uni forms”, she said. The Boston Globe, 3 March 1992

In Agdam’s mosque, the dead bod ies lay on mat - By Paul Quinn-Judge, Baku, Azerbaijan tresses under a na ked light bulb. People screamed insults at Azerbaijan’s pres i dent, Ayaz Azerbaijan charged yester day that Arm enian Mutalibov, say ing he had not done enough to mil i tants massa cred men, women and children pro tect Karabakh’s Azeri pop u la tion. after forc ing them from a town in Nagorno-Karabagh last week. Hundreds of peo ple crowded out side chant ing Is lamic prayers. Some wept un con trol la bly and Azerbaijani offi cials said 1000 Azeris had been col lapsed near their dead rel a tives, brought to the killed in town of Khojaly and that Ar menian town by truck only min utes earlier. fight ers then slaugh tered men, women and chil - dren flee ing across snow-cov ered mountain Chilling film of dozens of stiff ened corpses scat- passes. tered over a snowy hill side backed ac counts of the slaugh ter of women and children sobbed out Arm enian of ficials disputed the death toll and by refu gees who made it safely out of the dis - de nied the mas sa cre re port. puted Cau ca sus enclave. Journal ists on the scene said it was diffi cult to Azerbaijani tele vi sion showed pic tures of one say ex actly how many people had been killed in truck load of bodies brought to the Azeri town of sur round ing ar eas. But a Reuters pho tog ra pher Agdam, some with their faces appar ently said he saw two trucks filled with Azeri corpses, scratched with knives or their eyes gouged out. and a Rus sian jour nal ist re ported mas sa cre sites One little girl had her arms stretched out as if else where in the area. cry ing for help. Azeri of ficials and journal ists who flew briefly “The bodies are ly ing there like flocks of sheep. to the re gion by he li cop ter re cov ered the bod ies Even the fas cists did noth ing like this”, said of three dead chil dren who had been shot in the Agdam mi li tia comm ander Rashid Mamedov, head, Reuters said, but Ar meni ans pre vented refer ring to the Nazi in vaders in World War II. them from re triev ing more bodies.

“Give us help to bring back the bod ies and show There were grow ing signs that many civil ians peo ple what hap pened”, Karabakh Gov. Musa were killed dur ing the cap ture of Khojaly. Mamedov pleaded by tele phone to the So viet army base in Gyandzha, Azerbaijan’s sec- Foot age shot by Azerbaijan Tele vi sion Sunday ond-larg est city. showed about 10 dead bod ies, in clud ing sev eral women and chil dren, in an impro vised morgue in A he li cop ter pi lot who took cam era men and Agdam. An edi tor at the main televi sion station West ern corre spondents over the area reported in Baku said 180 bod ies had been re cov ered so see ing some corpses ly ing around Khojaly and far. A heli cop ter flying over the vicin ity is re- doz ens more near the Askeran Gap, a mountain ported to have seen other corpses, while the BBC pass only a few miles from Agdam. quoted a French pho tog ra pher who said that he had counted 31 dead, includ ing women and children, some who appeared as though they were shot in the head at close range.

11 KHOJALY TRAGEDY Ev i dence from in de pend ent sources

Mean while, the mayor of Khojaly, Elmar of ar moured per son nel car ri ers, they re al ized Mamedov, said at a news confer ence in Baku they could not hope to de fend themselves, and that 1000 peo ple had died in the at tack, 200 more fled into the for ests. In the small hours, the mas- were missing, 300 had been taken hos tage, and sa cre started. 200 were in jured. Ar mored per son nel car ri ers of the 366th spearheaded the attack, Mamedov Mr. Nasiru, who be lieves his wife and two chil - charged, and cleared the way for Arm enian dren were taken prisoner, repeated what many irregulars. other ref ugees have said - that troops of the for - mer Soviet army helped the Arm eni ans to attack The Age (Melbourne), 6 March 1992 Khojaly. “It is not my opinion, I saw it with my own eyes”. By Helen Womack, Agdam, Azerbaijan, Thurs - day The Sunday Times, 8 March 1992

The exact num ber of victims is still unclear, but Thomas Goltz, the first to re port the massa cre by there can be little doubt that Azeri civil ians were Ar me nian sol diers, re ports from Agdam massa cred by Arm enian Army in the snowy mountains of Nagorno-Karabakh last week. Khojaly used to be a bar ren Azeri town, with empty shops and treeless dirt roads. Yet it was Refu gees from the enclave town of Khojaly, still home to thousands of Azeri peo ple who, in shel ter ing in the Azeri bor der town of Agdam, happier times, tended fields and flocks of geese. give largely con sis tent ac counts of how Arme ni - Last week it was wiped off the map. ans at tacked their homes on the night of 25 Feb- ru ary, chased those who fled and shot them in the As sick ening reports trickled in to the sur round ing for ests. Yes ter day, I saw 75 freshly Azerbaijani bor der town of Agdam, and the bod - dug graves in one ceme tery in ad di tion to four ies piled up in the morgues, there was lit tle doubt muti lated corpses we were shown in the mosque that Khojaly and the stark foothills and gul lies when we ar rived in Agdam late on Tues day. I around it had been the site of the most ter ri ble also saw women and chil dren with bul let wounds massa cre since the Soviet Union broke apart. in a makeshift hospi tal in a string of railway carriages. I was the last Westerner to visit Khojaly. That was in Jan uary and peo ple were pre dict ing their Khojaly, an Azeri set tle ment in the enclave fate with grim res ig na tion. Zumrut Ezoya, a mostly pop u lated by Ar me ni ans, had a pop u la - mother of four on board the he li cop ter that fer - tion of about 6000. Mr. Rashid Mamedov, Com - ried us into the town, called her commu nity “sit - mander of Police in Agdam, said only about 500 ting ducks, ready to get shot”. She and her family escaped to his town. “So where are the rest?” were among the victims of the massa cre by the Some might have taken pris oner, he said, or fled. Ar me ni ans on February 26. Many bod ies were still ly ing in the mountains because the Azeris were short of heli copters to “The Ar meni ans have taken all the out ly ing vil - re trieve them. He be lieved more than 1000 had lages, one by one, and the gov ern ment does noth- perished, some of cold in tem pera tures as low as ing”, Balakisi Sakikov, 55, a fa ther of five, said. minus 10 degrees. “Next they will drive us out or kill us all”, said Dilbar, his wife. The cou ple, their three sons and When Azeris saw the Ar meni ans with a convoy three daughters were killed in the massa cre, as

12 KHOJALY TRAGEDY Ev i dence from in de pend ent sources were many other peo ple I had spoken to. Azerbaijani men, women and children of Khojaly, a small village in war-torn “It was close to the Arm enian lines we knew we Nagorno-Karabakh over run by Ar menian forces would have to cross. There was a road, and the on Feb. 25-26. Many were killed at close range first units of the colum n ran across then all hell while try ing to flee; some had their faces muti - broke loose. Bul lets were rain ing down from all lated, others were scalped. While the vic tims’ sides. We had just entered their trap”. families mourned.

The Azeri de fenders picked off one by one. Sur - Time, 16 March 1992 vi vors say that Arme nian forces then be gan a piti less slaughter, fir ing at any thing moved in the “MASSACRE IN KHOJALY” gullies. A video taken by an Azeri cam era man, wail ing and cry ing as he filmed body after body, By Jill Smolowe showed a griz zly trail of death lead ing to wards Reported by Yuri Zarakhovich/Mos cow higher, for ested ground where the vil lag ers had sought ref uge from the Armenians. While the details are ar gued, this much is plain: some thing grim and un con scio na ble hap pened in “The Ar meni ans just shot and shot and shot”, the Azerbaijani town of Khojaly two weeks ago. said Omar Veyselov, ly ing in hos pi tal in Agdam So far, some 200 dead Azerbaijanis, many of “I saw my wife and daughter fall right by me”, he them muti lated, have been trans ported out of the said. town tucked in side the Ar me nian-dom i nated en - clave of Nagorno-Karabakh for burial in neigh - Peo ple wan dered through the hos pi tal cor ri dors bor ing Azerbaijan. The to tal number of deaths - look ing for news of the loved ones. Some vented the Azerbaijanis claim 1,324 civil ians have been their fury on for eign ers: “Where is my daughter, slaugh tered, most of them women and children - where is my son?” wailed a mother. “Raped. is unknown. Butch ered. Lost”. Video tapes cir culated by the Azerbaijanis in- Le Mond, 14 March 1992 clude im ages of defaced civil ians, some of them scalped, oth ers shot in the head... The foreign jour nal ist in Aghdam saw the women and three scalped chil dren with the Svoboda, 12 June 1992 pulled off nails among the killed people. This is not “Azerbaijani pro pa ganda”, but re al ity. “A TRAGEDY WHOSE PERPETRATORS CANNOT BE VINDICATED” Newsweek, 16 March 1992 A re port by Me morial, the Mos cow-based hu - “THE FACE OF A MASSACRE” man rights group, on the massive vi ola tions of human rights commit ted in the tak ing of Khojaly By Pascal Privat with Steve Le Vine in Moscow on the night of 25-26 Feb ru ary 1992 by armed units Azerbaijan was a charnel house again last week: a place of mourning ref ugees and doz ens of man - The re port of Me morial on the massive vi ola - gled corpses dragged to a make shift morgue be- tions of hu man rights commit ted in the tak ing of hind the mosque. They were or di nary Khojaly says of the civil ians’ flight from the

13 KHOJALY TRAGEDY Ev i dence from in de pend ent sources

town: “The fugi tives fell into ambushes set by Mr. Sadikov and his wife were short of food, the Arm eni ans and came under fire. Some of without electric ity for more than a month, and them nonethe less managed to get into Agdam; cut off from he li cop ter flights for 12 days. They oth ers, mostly women and chil dren (ex actly how sensed the Arm enian noose was tighten ing many it is impos si ble to say), froze to death around the 2,000 to 3,000 people left in the strag - while lost in the mountains; oth ers still, accord - gling Azeri town on the edge of Karabakh. ing to tes ti mony from those who reached Agdam, were taken prisoner near the villages of “At about 11pm a bom bard ment started such as Pirdzhamal and Nakhichevanik. There is ev i - we had never heard be fore, eight or nine kinds of dence from inhab it ants of Khojaly who have al - weap ons, ar til lery, heavy ma chine-guns, the ready been ex changed that some of the pris oners lot”, Mr. Sadikov said. were shot. Around 200 bod ies were brought into Agdam in the space of four days. Scores of the Soon neigh bours were pour ing down the street corpses bore traces of pro fana tion. Doc tors on a from the di rec tion of the at tack. Some huddled in hos pi tal train in Agdam noted no less than four shel ters but others started flee ing the town, down corpses that had been scalped and one that had a hill, through a stream and through the snow been be headed. State fo ren sic ex am i na tions into a for est on the other side. were car ried out in Agdam on 181 corpses (130 male and 51 female, includ ing 13 chil dren): the To es cape, the towns peo ple had to reach the findings were that 151 peo ple had died from gun- Azeri town of Agdam about 15 miles away. They shot wounds, 20 from shrapnel wounds and 10 thought they were going to make it, un til at about from blows inflicted with a blunt instru m ent. dawn they reached a bottle neck between the two The re cords of the hos pi tal train in Agdam, Azeri vil lages of Nakhchivanik and Saderak. through which al most all the in jured in hab it ants or de fenders of Khojaly passed, re fer to 598 “None of my group was hurt up to then... Then cases of wounds or frostbite (cases of frostbite we were spot ted by a car on the road, and the Ar - being in the majority) and one case of live menian out posts started open ing fire”, Mr. scalping”. Sadikov said. Mr. Sadikov said only 10 people from his group of 80 made it through, in clud ing The In de pend ent (Lon don), 12 June 1992 his wife and mili tia man son. Seven of his im medi ate re la tions died, in clud ing his 67-years-old By Frederique Lengaigne/Reuter elder brother.

Aref Sadikov sat qui etly in the shade of a “I only had time to reach down and cover his face cafe-bar on the Caspian Sea espla nade of Baku with his hat”, he said, pull ing his own big flat and showed a line of stitches in his trou sers, torn Turk ish cap over his eyes. “We have never got by an Ar menian bul let as he fled the town of any of the bod ies back”. Hojali just over three months ago, writes Hugh Pope. The first groups were lucky to have the ben e fit of cov er ing fire. One hero of the evac ua tion, Alif “I’m still wearing the same clothes, I don’t have Hajief, was shot dead as he struggled to change a any oth ers”, the 51-years-old car pen ter said, be - maga zine while cov er ing the third group’s cross - gin ning his ac count of the Hojali di sas ter. “I was ing, Mr Sadikov said. wounded in five places, but I am lucky to be alive”. Another hero, Elman Memmedov, the mayor of

14 KHOJALY TRAGEDY Ev i dence from in de pend ent sources

Hojali, said he and several oth ers spent the whole iden ti fied. This fig ure of nearly 700 dead is day of 26 Febru ary in the bushy hill side, sur - quoted as of ficial by Leila Yunusova, the new rounded by dead bod ies as they tried to keep spokeswom an of the Azeri Ministry of Defence. three Ar me nian ar moured per son nel car ri ers at bay. Franñois Zen Ruffinen, head of del e ga tion of the In ter na tional Red Cross in Baku, said the Mus - As the survi vors stag gered the last mile into lim imam of the nearby city of Agdam had re - Agdam, there was little com fort in a town from ported a fig ure of 580 bodies re ceived at his which most of the popu la tion was soon to flee. mosque from Hojali, most of them civil ians. “We did not count the bod ies. But the fig ure “The night after we reached the town there was a seems rea sonable. It is no fantasy”, Mr. Zen big Ar menian rocket at tack. Some people just Ruffinen said. “We have some idea since we kept go ing”, Mr. Sadikov said. “I had to get to gave the body bags and products to wash the the hospi tal for treatm ent. I was in a bad way. dead”. They even found a bul let in my sock”. Mr. Rasulov endeavours to give an un emotional Victims of massa cre: An Azeri woman mourns esti mate of the num ber of dead in the massa cre. her son, killed in the Hojali massa cre in Febru ary “Don’t get worked up. It will take sev eral (left). Nurses strug gle in prim itive condi tions months to get a final fig ure”, the 43-years-old (centre) to save a wounded man in a makeshift lawyer said at his small office. oper at ing theatre set up in a train carriage. Grief-stricken rela tives in the town of Agdam Mr. Rasulov knows about these things. It took (right) weep over the cof fin of another of the him two years to reach a firm con clu sion that 131 mas sa cre vic tims. Cal cu lat ing the fi nal death toll peo ple were killed and 714 wounded when So - has been com pli cated because Muslims bury viet troops and tanks crushed a na tion al ist up ris - their dead within 24 hours. ing in Baku in Jan uary 1990.

The In de pend ent (Lon don), 12 June 1992 Offi cially, 184 people have so far been cer ti fied as dead, be ing the number of peo ple that could be “PAINFUL SEARCH” med i cally ex am ined by the re pub lic’s fo ren sic depart ment. “This is just a small per centage of The grue some extent of Feb ru ary’s kill ings of the dead”, said Rafiq Youssifov, the re public’s Azeris by Arm eni ans in the town of Hojali is at chief fo rensic sci entist. “They were the only last emerg ing in Azerbaijan - about 600 men, bodies brought to us. Remem ber the chaos and women and chil dren dead. the fact that we are Muslims and have to wash and bury our dead within 24 hours”. The State Pros e cu tor, Aydin Rasulov, the cheif in ves ti ga tor of a 15-man team looking into what Of these 184 peo ple, 51 were women, and 13 Azerbaijan calls the “Hojali Massa cre”, said his were chil dren un der 14 years old. figure of 600 peo ple dead was a mini mum on pre lim i nary find ings. A sim i lar es ti mate was Gunshots killed 151 peo ple, shrap nel killed 20 given by Elman Memmedov, the mayor of and axes or blunt in stru ments killed 10. Ex po - Hojali. An even higher one was printed in the sure in the high land snows killed the last three. Baku newspa per Ordu in May - 479 dead peo ple Thirty-three peo ple showed signs of de lib er ate named and more than 200 bod ies re ported un - muti la tion, in clud ing ears, noses, breasts or pe -

15 KHOJALY TRAGEDY Ev i dence from in de pend ent sources

nises cut off and eyes gouged out, ac cord ing to Êîììåðñàíòú (Mos cow), Pro fessor Youssifov’s re port. Those 184 bod ies 27 Feb ru ary 2002 exam ined were less than a third of those believed to have been killed, Mr. Rasulov said. Over the night from 25 to 26 Feb ru ary 1992 the Khojaly town (Nagorny Karabakh), in hab ited “There were too many bod ies of dead and mainly by Azerbaijanis, was subjected to the wounded on the ground to count prop erly: massive at tack from the Arm enian side. The 470-500 in Hojali, 650-700 peo ple by the stream units of the Rus sian 366th in fantry guards reg i - and the road and 85-100 vis i ble around ment took part in the at tack. As a re sult, 613 per - Nakhchivanik vil lage”, Mr. Manafov wrote in a sons dead, 487 wounded, 1275 impris oned, 150 state ment coun ter signed by the he li cop ter pilot. per sons are miss ing. The Khojaly events have rad i cally changed the na ture of the con flict – af - “Peo ple waved up to us for help. We saw three ter wards the mil i tary op er a tions from both sides dead chil dren and one two-years-old alive by have ac tu ally turned into ethnic cleansings. one dead woman. The live one was pull ing at her arm for the mother to get up. We tried to land but Arm eni ans started a bar rage against our heli copter and we had to return”.

There has been no con sol i da tion of the lists and fig ures in cir cu la tion be cause of the po lit i cal up- heavals of the last few months and the fact that nobody knows exactly who was in Hojali at the time - many inhab it ants were displaced from other vil lages taken over by Armenian forces.

16 KHOJALY TRAGEDY Ev i dence from in de pend ent sources

REPORTS AND DOCUMENTS ber of Azeri civil ians killed because Karabakh Arm enian forces gained control of the area after OF NON-GOVERNMENTAL the massa cre. While it is widely ac cepted that ORGANIZATIONS 200 hundred Azeris were murdered, as many as 500-1000 may have died. Human Rights Watch/Helsinki, 1993 Human Rights Watch/Helsinki, 24 March 1997 “THE FORMER SOVIET UNION: AZERBAIJAN” “LETTER BY HOLLY CARTNER, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR OF HUMAN …During the win ter of 1992, Ar menian forces went on the of fensive, forc ing al most the entire RIGHTS WATCH/HELSINKI, Azerbaijani popu la tion of the en clave to flee, ADDRESSED TO MR. ALEXANDER and com mit ting un con scio na ble acts of vi o lence ARZOUMANYAN, MINISTER OF against ci vil ians as they fled. The most noto ri ous FOREIGN AFFAIRS OF THE REPUBLIC of these at tacks oc curred on Feb ru ary 25 in the OF ARMENIA” vil lage of Khojaly. A large col umn of res i dents, accom panied by a few dozen retreat ing fighters, Dear Mr. Arzoumanyan, fled the city as it fell to Arm enian forces. As they ap proached the bor der with Azerbaijan, they As Ex ec u tive Di rec tor of Hu man Rights came across an Arm enian mil i tary post and were Watch/Helsinki (form erly Helsinki Watch), I cru elly fired upon. At least 161 ci vil ians are wish to re spond to the March 3 Min is try of For - known to have been murdered in this in ci dent, eign Affairs state ment regard ing the 1992 al though Azerbaijani of fi cials es ti mate that slaughter of Azeri civil ians in the town of about 800 per ished. Ar menian forces killed un - Khojaly in Nagorno Karabakh. In it, the Min is try armed ci vil ians and soldiers who were hors de ar gues that the Popu lar Front of Azerbaijan was combat, and looted and sometimes burned re spon si ble for the ci vil ian deaths, sup port ing homes… this argu m ent by refer ring to an inter view with former Presi dent Ayaz Mutalibov and, in cred i - Human Rights Watch/Helsinki, bly, to a 1992 re port by our or ga ni za tion. The re - De cem ber 1994 port, Blood shed in the Cau ca sus: Es ca la tion of the Armed Conflict in Nagorno Karabakh, doc u - “AZERBAIJAN: SEVEN YEARS OF ments vi o la tions of hu man i tar ian law in the con - CONFLICT IN NAGORNO-KARABAKH” flict com mitted by both Azerbaijani and Karabakh Ar menian forces. Nei ther our over - The massa cre of hundreds of Azeri ci vil ians in view and ver sion of the events, nor the in di vid ual Khojali, NKAO, by Karabakh forces with al - inter views with Azeri refu gees from Khojaly and leged sup port of the 366th Reg i ment of the Rus- other vil lages in Nagorno Karabakh pub lished in sian army» was one of the major events charac - the re port could pos si bly sup port the no tion that ter ized the war in 1992. Azerbaijani forces will fully prevented the evac- ua tion of civil ians or that they shot their own citi - In Feb ru ary 1992, Karabakh Ar menian forces – zens. We are deeply distressed that the Min is try re port edly backed by sol diers from the 366th has, wit tingly or un wit tingly, linked our re port to Motor Rifle Regi m ent of the Russian Army – views which we re ject and which our re port does seized the Azeri-pop ulated town of Khojali. not reflect. More than 200 civil ians were killed in the attack, the larg est massa cre to date in the conflict. Foot- The Min istry statem ent reads: “… the mili tia of note 28: There are no ex act fig ures for the num- the Azerbaijani National Front actively ob - 17 KHOJALY TRAGEDY Ev i dence from in de pend ent sources

structed and ac tu ally pre vented the ex odus of the reg i ment ... de lib er ately dis re garded this cus - lo cal pop u la tion through the moun tain pas sages tom ary law re straint on attacks. Nagorno spe cif i cally left open by Karabakh Ar me ni ans to Karabakh of ficials and fighters clearly ex pected fa cil i tate the flight of the ci vil ian pop u la tion. On the in hab it ants of Khojaly to flee since they this matter, the Septem ber 1992 Helsinki Watch claim to have in formed the town that a cor ri dor non-gov ern men tal or ga ni za tion re port quotes an would be left open to al low for their safe pas - Azerbaijani woman who says that Ar meni ans sage... Under these cir cum stances, the kill ing of had no ti fied the Azerbaijani ci vil ian pop u la tion flee ing combat ants could not jus tify the to leave the town with white flags raised, in fact forseeably large num ber of ci vil ian ca su al ties.” the Azerbaijani mili tia shot those who attem pted to flee.” Please allow me to clar ify another refer ence to our 1992 re port, re gard ing the 1988 Sumgait po - Our re port in deed found that many res i dents of grom. Our report reads: “The most brutal of Khojaly may have had advance warn ing of the these events was the anti-Arm enian pogrom in im pend ing mil i tary op er a tion, since Ar me nian Sumgait, Azerbaijan, which took the lives of forces had given an ul ti matum to Alif Gajiyev, thirty-two Ar me ni ans, wounded hun dreds more, then head of the Khojaly mi li tia, who in turn and in ten si fied the fears of eth nic Ar me ni ans liv - warned civil ians. Our research and that of the ing in other parts of Azerbaijan,” which dif fers Me morial Hu man Rights Cen ter found that the from the cita tion used in the Minis try statem ent. retreat ing mili tia fled Khojaly along with some We further cited the es ti mate of 300,000 – of the large groups of fleeing ci vil ians. Our re - 350,000 eth nic Ar meni ans who fled Azerbaijan, port noted that by re maining armed and in uni - not 600,000 as the Minis try state ment seemed to form, the Azerbaijani mili tia may be consid ered attrib ute to our report. as com batants and thus endan gered fleeing civil - ians, even if their in tent had been to pro tect them. We wel come the use of our re ports by gov ern - ments and in ter gov ern men tal or ga ni za tions, and Yet we place direct respon si bil ity for the civil ian we sincerely hope that there will be no further deaths with Karabakh Arm enian forces. Indeed, mis rep re sen ta tion re gard ing the con tents of our neither our report nor that of Mem orial includes 1992 re port. any ev i dence to sup port the ar gument that Azerbaijani forces ob structed the flight of, or I thank you for your at ten tion. fired on Azeri civil ians. For clarity’s sake I cite Yours sincerely, our 1992 re port (page 24): Holly Cartner “ ... Thus, a party that in ter sperses com batants Ex ec u tive Di rec tor with fleeing civil ians puts those civil ians at risk Human Rights Watch/Hel sinki and vio lates its obli ga tion to pro tect its own ci- cc: Mr. Hasan Hasanov, Minis ter of Foreign Af- vil ians... [T]he at tack ing party [i.e., Karabakh fairs of the Repub lic of Azerbaijan Arm enian forces] is still obliged to take precau - Mr. Rouben Shugarian, Ambas sa dor of the Re - tionary measures to avoid or mini m ize civil ian public of Arm enia to the United States ca su al ties. In par tic u lar, the party must sus pend Mr. Hafiz Pashayev, Am bassa dor of the Repub - an attack if it becom es appar ent that the at tack lic of Azerbaijan to the United States may be expected to cause civil ian casu al ties that Am bassa dor Peter Tomsen, United States Am - are exces sive in re la tion to the concrete and di- bas sa dor to Ar me nia rect mil i tary ad van tage an tic i pated.” Am bas sa dor Rich ard Kauzlarich, United States “The cir cumstances sur round ing the at tack ... on Am bas sa dor to Azerbaijan. those flee ing Khojaly in di cate that [Karabakh] Ar menian forces and the troops of the 366th CIS 18 KHOJALY TRAGEDY

math of the massa cre, wrote an account of what STATEMENTS AND RECORDS he saw. He said, “Some chil dren were found with OF STATE AGENCIES, severed ears; the skin had been cut from the left side of an elderly woman’s face; and men had OFFICIALS AND been scalped.”

PARLIAMENTARIANS Hum an Rights Watch called the trag edy at the time “the largest massa cre to date in the con- Congress man Dan Burton’s speech in the US flict.” The New York Times wrote about “truck- House of Rep re sen ta tives, loads of bod ies” and described acts of “scalp- 17 Feb ru ary 2005 ing.”

Mr. Bur ton of In di ana. Mr. Speaker, for years a This savage cruelty against in nocent women, number of dis tin guished Members of this House chil dren and the el derly is un fathom able in and have come to the Floor of this Chamber ev ery of itself but the senseless brutal ity did not stop April to com mem orate the so-called Arm enian with Khojaly. Khojaly was sim ply the first. In Genocide - the exact details of which are still fact, the level of brutal ity and the un prec e dented very much under de bate to day al most 90 years atroci ties com mitted at Khojaly set a pattern of after the events. Iron i cally and trag i cally, none de struc tion and eth nic cleans ing that Ar me nian of these Mem bers has ever once mentioned the troops would ad here to for the re mainder of the eth nic cleans ing car ried out by the Ar meni ans war. On Novem ber 29, 1993, Newsweek quoted during the Arm enia-Aze rbaijan war which a senior US Govern m ent offi cial as say ing ended a mere decade ago. “What we see now is a system atic de struc tion of every village in their (the Armenians) way. It’s Khojaly was a little known small town in vandalism.” Azerbaijan un til Feb ru ary 1992. To day it no lon - ger ex ists, and for peo ple of Azerbaijan and the This year, as they have every year since the mas- re gion, the word “Khojaly” has be come synon y - sacre, the leaders of Azerbaijan’s Chris tian, Jew- mous with pain, sor row, and cru elty. On Feb ru - ish, and Mus lim com mu ni ties is sue ap peals on ary 26, 1992, the world ended for the peo ple of the eve of com mem ora tion of the massa cre of Khojaly when Ar menian troops supported by a Khojaly urg ing the in ter na tional com mu nity to Russian infan try regi m ent did not just attack the con demn the Febru ary 26, 1992 blood shed, fa - town but they razed it to the ground. In the pro - cil i tate lib er a tion of the oc cu pied ter ri to ries and cess the Ar meni ans bru tally mur dered 613 peo - re pa tri a tion of the displaced communities. ple, an ni hi lated whole fam i lies, cap tured 1275 peo ple, left 1,000 ci vil ians maimed or crip pled, And every year, those res i dents of Khojaly, who and an other 150 peo ple un ac counted for in their survived the massa cre - many still scat tered wake. Me morial, a Rus sian hu man rights group, among one mil lion ref ugees and dis placed per - re ported that “scores of the corpses bore traces of sons in camps around Azerbaijan - appeal with pro fa na tion. Doc tors on a hos pi tal train in pain and hope to the in ter na tional commu nity to Agdam noted no less than four corpses that had hold Arm enia respon si ble for this crime. I am been scalped and one that had been be headed... pleased to say that on Jan uary 25, 2005 the Par - and one case of live scalp ing:” Vari ous other lia mentary As sembly of the Council of Eu rope wit nesses re ported hor ri fy ing de tails of the mas- over whelm ingly adopted a res o lu tion high light - sacre. The late Azerbaijani journal ist Chingiz ing that “consid er able parts of Azerbaijan’s ter- Mustafayev, who was the first to film the after - 19 KHOJALY TRAGEDY State ments and re cords of state agen cies, of fi cials and par lia men tar i ans

ritory are still occu pied by the Arm enian forces Letter of Britain’s Foreign and Common - and sep arat ist forces are still in control of the wealth Office to the Vatan Soci ety, Nagorno-Karabakh re gion.” It also ex pressed 24 Feb ru ary 2005 con cern that the mili tary ac tion be tween 1988 and 1994 and the wide spread eth nic hos til i ties In its letter to the Vatan So ciety Britain’s For - which preceded it, “led to large-scale eth nic ex- eign and Com monwealth Of fice stated inter alia pul sion and the cre ation of mono-ethnic ar eas that “[w]hat hap pened at Khodjaly stands out as which resem ble the ter ri ble concept of ethnic an ap pall ing trag edy in a list of many that oc - cleansing.” curred dur ing the course of the war. We extend our deepest sym pathies to the fam i lies of the vic- Mr. Speaker, this is not the ring ing con demna - tims and our assur ance that their suf fering will tion that the sur vi vors of Khojaly de serve but it is not be forgotten”. an im portant first step by an inter na tional com - munity that has too long been si lent on this is sue. Accord ing to the For eign Office, the UK is Congress should take the next step and I hope my deeply aware of the horrific inci dents that took colleagues will join me in stand ing with place dur ing the Nagorno-Karabakh con flict, Azerbaijanis as they com mem orate the trag edy and that “the suffer ing con tin ues for the fami lies of Khojaly. The world should know and re mem - of those who died and for the many thousands of ber. peo ple dis placed from their homes”.

20 KHOJALY TRAGEDY

In the middle of the night, a large crowd fled ADDITIONAL SOURCES through the woods, which were an kle-deep in AND REFERENCES snow, and started to de scend the val ley of the small Gargar river. In early morning, the crowd Charles van der Leeuw, Azerbaijan: of Khojali civil ians, inter spersed with a few mili - A quest for iden tity: a short history tia men, emerged onto open ground near the Ar - (New York: St. Mar tin Press, 2000), menian vil lage of Nakhchivanik. There they p. 171 were hit by a wall of gunfire from Arm enian fight ers on the hill side above… More flee ing ci - In the early morning of Febru ary 26, the Artsakh vil ians kept on coming onto a scene of appalling Self-Defence Forces stormed the town of carnage… Khojaly, on the road be tween Stepanakert and Agdam, which ap peared to have been left al most An Ar me nian po lice of fi cer, Ma jor Valery un de fended. Taken by sur prise, the pop u la tion Babayan, sug gested re venge as a motive. He told tried to es cape but a large num ber were caught the Ameri can re porter Paul Quinn-Judge that on the way, many slaughtered then and there and many of the fight ers who had taken part in the many more taken to per ish un der tor ture. In total, Khojali attack “orig inally came from Sumgait 1 at least a thou sand ci vil ians are thought to have and places like that”. died in the atroc ity or else have been re ported missing with no hope of sur vival. More than half Asked about the taking of Khojali, the Ar menian 2 of the vic tims consisted of women, children and mili tary leader Serzh Sarkisian said care fully, elderly. “We don’s speak loudly about these things”. “A lot was exag ger ated” in the casu al ties and the Thomas de Waal, Black Gar den: Ar me nia and fleeing Azerbaijanis had put up armed resis - Azerbaijan through peace and war (New York tance, he claimed. Sarkisian’s sum mation of & London: New York Univer sity Press, 2003), what had hap pened, however, was more honest pp. 169-172 and more brutal:

Begin ning in the New Year of 1992, the Ar meni - But I think the main point is something dif fer ent. ans be gan to break out of the Karabakhi cap i tal, Before Khojali, the Azerbaijanis thought that Stepanakert. They cap tured the Azerbaijani vil- they were jok ing with us, they thought that the lages that sur rounded the town, ex pel ling the Arme ni ans were peo ple who could not raise their hundreds of Azerbaijanis who re mained there. hand against the ci vil ian pop ula tion. We were Their main target was now Khojali… able to break that [ste reo type]. And that’s what hap pened. And we should also take into ac count The Arme nian as sault be gan on the night of that amongst those boys were people who had 25-26 Feb ru ary, a date proba bly cho sen to mark fled from Baku and Sumgait. the an ni ver sary of the Sumgait pogroms four years ear lier. Arm ored vehi cles from the Soviet Sarkisian’s account throws a differ ent light on 366th Reg i ment lent their sup port. They sur - the worst massa cre of the Karabakh war, sug- rounded Khojali on three sides be fore Arme nian gesting that the killings may, at least in part, have fight ers went in and over whelmed the local been a delib er ate act of mass kill ing as intim i da- defenders… tion”.

1 See Paul Quinne-Judge, “Armenians, Azerbaijanis tell of terror; Behind an alleged massacre, a long trail of personal revenge”, Boston Globe, 15 March 1992. 2 Currently takes up the post of the Defense Minister of Armenia. 21 KHOJALY TRAGEDY Ad di tional sources and ref er ences

Ednan Agaev, Azerbaijan: the next bat tle - to 26th, 1992, mili tia of the Au ton omous Re pub - ground be tween EAST and WEST lic of Upper Karabakh, baked by the motor ized (Paris: Office d’Edition Impres sion Librairie, in fantry of the 366th regi ment of the ex-Soviet F.-X. de Guibert, 2005), Union, the major ity of its offi cers are Arm enian pp. 121-122 in or i gin-shelled the city. Then, car ry ing out a pol icy of eth nic cleans ing, de cided by Armenia Located a stone’s throw from Hankendy against Azerbaijan, mounted a bloody attack. (Spedanaker for the Arm eni ans), the capi tal of Upper Karabakh, the Azerbaijani city of After a few hours of fierce combat, Khodjaly Khodjali, pop ula tion 2,500, has the only air port surren dered. It was com pletely destroyed, a shell in the enclave. A strate gic place par excel lence in of a town, a ghost city. Its luck i est in hab it ants the con flict, Khodjali piqued the in ter est of Ar - were able to escape, but the losses were very menia, which de cided to ap pro pri ate the city by heavy: 613 peo ple, of which 63 were chil dren, means of force. Dur ing the night of Febru ary 25 106 women and 70 aged peo ple-were killed, and 487 oth ers se ri ously wounded.

22 KHOJALY TRAGEDY

FORENSIC MEDICAL EXAMINATION REPORTS1

Women

Name and surname: Firangul Karimova

Fo ren sic med i cal ex am i na tion per formed on: 26 Feb ru ary 1992 On the ba sis of the de ci sion of: Office of the Public Prose cu tor for Karabakh Per formed by: F.J.Abbasov, med i cal fo ren sic ex pert Place of fo ren sic med i cal ex am i na tion: The mosque of the Aghdam city

Con clu sion:

I All limbs, auri cles, breasts, eye balls are missing. Wound with clot ted blood on the chest, the size of 25 x 30 cm. II All the mentioned in ju ries were inflicted by a sharp weapon and re sulted in blood flow. III The de scribed in flicted in ju ries al to gether pre sented a le thal in jury, which im mi nently re sulted in death.

Name and surname: H.Humbatova

Fo ren sic med i cal ex am i na tion per formed on: 26 Feb ru ary 1992 On the ba sis of the de ci sion of: Office of the Public Pros e cu tor of the Re public of Azerbaijan Per formed by: E.Musayev, med i cal fo ren sic ex pert Place of fo ren sic med i cal ex am i na tion: The mosque of the Aghdam city

1 Prepared on the basis of the records of the criminal case investigating by the Prosecutor General’s Office of the Republic of Azerbaijan. 23 KHOJALY TRAGEDY Fo ren sic med i cal ex am i na tion re ports

Con clu sion:

I Bullet wound on the chest. Eye balls and mammary glands are missing. Round-shaped wounds over the area of eye-pits, eyeballs, chest and mam mary glands.

II Bullet wound was caused by stray bul let which en tered the tho racic cavity. Ac cord ing to the mor - pholog i cal symptoms of the wounds eyeballs and mammary glands were ex cised by a sharp weapon. III The de scribed in flicted in ju ries al to gether pre sented a le thal in jury, which im mi nently re sulted in death.

Name and surname: Tamara Mammadova

Con clu sion:

I Bullet wounds on the back. Eyeballs and mammary glands are missing. II Bullet wounds on the back were caused by the fire-arms. Accord ing to the mor pholog i cal symptoms of the wounds on the site of the eye balls and mammary glands they were in flicted by a sharp weapon. III The de scribed in flicted in ju ries al to gether pre sented a le thal in jury, which im mi nently re sulted in death.

Name and surname: Dilara Nuraliyeva

Fo ren sic med i cal ex am i na tion per formed on: 26 Feb ru ary 1992 On the ba sis of the de ci sion of: Office of the Public Pros e cu tor for Karabakh Per formed by: M.F.Khajiyev, med i cal fo ren sic ex pert Place of fo ren sic med i cal ex am i na tion: The mosque of the Aghdam city

Con clu sion:

I Both eyes and teeth are missing. Per forat ing wounds on the chest. II Both eyes and teeth were put out by a blunt ob ject. Per forat ing wounds on the chest were caused by numer ous bul lets and this re sulted in intraabdominal in jury and in ter nal hemor rhage. III The de scribed in flicted in ju ries al to gether pre sented a le thal in jury, which im mi nently re sulted in death. 24 KHOJALY TRAGEDY Fo ren sic med i cal ex am i na tion re ports

Name and surname: Dilara Azimova

Fo ren sic med i cal ex am i na tion per formed on: 27 Feb ru ary 1992 On the ba sis of the de ci sion of: Office of the Public Pros e cu tor for Karabakh Per formed by: M.F.Khajiyev, med i cal fo ren sic ex pert Place of fo ren sic med i cal ex am i na tion: The mosque of the Aghdam city

Con clu sion:

I Four bul let wounds the chest, per forat ing wound on the left side of the chest. II In ju ries are the re sult of the fire di rected from both the front and back sides. The wound on the left side of the chest was caused by ex plo sive bul let and led to in ter nal hemor rhage and blood flow. III The de scribed in flicted in ju ries al to gether pre sented a le thal in jury, which im mi nently re sulted in death.

Name and surname: Dilara Hanifayeva

Fo ren sic med i cal ex am i na tion per formed on: 27 Feb ru ary 1992 Per formed by: S.V.Gasimov, med i cal fo ren sic ex pert Place of fo ren sic med i cal ex am i na tion: The mosque of the Aghdam city

Con clu sion:

I Two bullet wounds on the left side of the chest, four bul let wounds on the right hip and on the right shin. One cut wound on the left side of the chest. II Bullet wounds were caused by the fire-arms. The cut wound was inflicted by a sharp weapon. III In ju ries led to blood flow and shock. IV The de scribed in flicted in ju ries al to gether pre sented a le thal in jury, which im mi nently re sulted in death.

Name and surname: Teyube Allahverdiyeva

Fo ren sic med i cal ex am i na tion per formed on: 28 Feb ru ary 1992 Per formed by: S.V.Gasimov, med i cal fo ren sic ex pert Place of fo ren sic med i cal ex am i na tion: The mosque of the Aghdam city

Con clu sion:

I One bul let wound on the fore head, one bul let wound on the right sinciput, and one bul let wound on the chest. II Bullet wounds were caused by the fire-arms.

25 KHOJALY TRAGEDY Fo ren sic med i cal ex am i na tion re ports

III These in ju ries led to blood flow and shock. IV The de scribed in flicted in ju ries al to gether pre sented a le thal in jury, which im mi nently re sulted in death.

Name and surname: Zahra Guliyeva

Con clu sion:

I Two bullet wounds on the chest. II Bullet wounds were caused by the fire-arms and led to blood flow and shock. III The fore go ing in ju ries im mi nently caused death.

Name and surname: Shafiga Zeynalova

Fo ren sic med i cal ex am i na tion per formed on: 28 Feb ru ary 1992 On the ba sis of the de ci sion of: Office of the Public Prose cu tor for Karabakh Per formed by: I.Bagirov, med i cal fo ren sic ex pert Place of fo ren sic med i cal ex am i na tion: The mosque of the Aghdam city

Con clu sion:

I Seven per forat ing wounds on the chest. First de gree frost bite on the leg toes. II Per forat ing wounds were caused by stray bul lets and led to in ter nal in jury. III The de scribed in flicted in ju ries al to gether pre sented a le thal in jury, which im mi nently re sulted in death.

Name and surname: Rafiga Jafarova

Fo ren sic med i cal ex am i na tion per formed on: 28 Feb ru ary 1992 On the ba sis of the de ci sion of: Office of the Public Prose cu tor for Karabakh Per formed by: M.F.Khajiyev, med i cal fo ren sic ex pert Place of fo ren sic med i cal ex am i na tion: The mosque of the Aghdam city

Con clu sion:

I Destruc tion and flat ter ing of skel e ton from head to pelvis, de struc tion of in ter nal or gans and brain, in ju ries in the form of nu mer ous par al lel hor i zon tal sores.

26 KHOJALY TRAGEDY Fo ren sic med i cal ex am i na tion re ports

II In ju ries are the re sult of the compres sion of the body by heavy items, such as cat er pil lar, which implies that it was crushed by a tank. III The de scribed in flicted in ju ries al to gether pre sented a le thal in jury, which im mi nently re sulted in death.

Name and sur name: Elgunun Hasanova

Fo ren sic med i cal ex am i na tion per formed on: 1 March 1992 On the ba sis of the de ci sion of: Office of the Public Prose cu tor for Karabakh Per formed by: I.A.Bagirov, med i cal fo ren sic ex pert Place of fo ren sic med i cal ex am i na tion: The mosque of the Aghdam city

Con clu sion:

I Mul ti ple frac tures of bones, wounds on the head, chest, pel vis and limbs, scrapes on the face, body and limbs. Bullet wound on the left hip. II In ju ries were inflicted by blows of a blunt ob ject and indi cate that the body was compressed by heavy ob ject, such as cat er pil lar, which implies that it was crushed by tank. Bul let wound was caused by the fire-arms. III The de scribed in flicted in ju ries al to gether pre sented a le thal in jury, which im mi nently re sulted in death.

Name and surname: Fitat Hasanova

Con clu sion:

I Three wounds on the head, frac ture of cra nium, numer ous bruises on the face and body, eye balls are missing. II In ju ries on the head and body were in flicted by a blunt object. Eye balls were put out by a sharp weapon. III The de scribed in flicted in ju ries al to gether pre sented a le thal in jury, which im mi nently re sulted in death.

Name and surname: Gulchohra Hasanova

Fo ren sic med i cal ex am i na tion per formed on: 1 March 1992 On the ba sis of the de ci sion of: Office of the Public Pros e cu tor for Karabakh

27 KHOJALY TRAGEDY Fo ren sic med i cal ex am i na tion re ports

Per formed by: I.A.Bagirov, med i cal fo ren sic ex pert Place of fo ren sic med i cal ex am i na tion: The mosque of the Aghdam city

Con clu sion:

I Bullet wounds on the chest and up per side of ab domen. The joint on the left up per limb is missing. Frost bite of foots and toes. II Bullet wounds were caused by the fire-arms. The joint was ex cised by a sharp weapon. Frost bite is the re sult of the body be ing ex posed to ex tremely low temper a ture. III In ju ries led to blood flow and shock. IV The de scribed in flicted in ju ries al to gether pre sented a le thal in jury, which im mi nently re sulted in death.

Name and surname: Nazila Shadmanova

Fo ren sic med i cal ex am i na tion per formed on: 5 March 1992 On the ba sis of the de ci sion of: Office of the Public Prose cu tor for Karabakh Per formed by: I.A.Bagirov, med i cal fo ren sic ex pert Place of fo ren sic med i cal ex am i na tion: The mosque of the Aghdam city

Con clu sion:

I Eight bul let wounds on the back, frac tures of the 6th - 10th ribs. II In ju ries were caused by the fire-arms and led to in ter nal in jury, blood flow and shock. III The fore go ing in ju ries im mi nently caused death.

Name and surname: Saadat Abishova

Fo ren sic med i cal ex am i na tion per formed on: 1 March 1992 On the ba sis of the de ci sion of: E.A.Mikayilov, In ves ti ga tor for Par tic u larly Impor tant Cases at the Of fice of Public Pros e cu tor of the Re pub lic of Azerbaijan Per formed by: L.A.Abbasov med i cal fo ren sic ex pert Place of fo ren sic med i cal ex am i na tion: Sana to rium of the Naftalan city (Rus sian Fed er a tion)

Con clu sion:

I In ju ries on the left hand and on the left side of the fore head. II In ju ries were inflicted by a blow of a blunt ob ject. III The described inju ries are di agnosed as trivial in juries and lead to short-term decay of health.

28 KHOJALY TRAGEDY Fo ren sic med i cal ex am i na tion re ports

Name and surname: Halala Abdullayeva

Fo ren sic med i cal ex am i na tion per formed on: 18 Sep tem ber 1992 On the ba sis of the de ci sion of: E.A.Mikayilov, In ves ti ga tor for Par tic u larly Impor tant Cases at the Of fice of Public Pros e cu tor of the Re public of Azerbaijan dated 1 March 1992 Per formed by: M.S.Ismayilov, med i cal fo ren sic ex pert Place of fo ren sic med i cal ex am i na tion: Out pa tient clinic

Con clu sion:

I First-degree frostbite of the lower part of both legs. II Frost bite is the re sult of the body be ing ex posed to ex tremely low temper a ture. III The described inju ries are di agnosed as mean inju ries and lead to long-term decay of health.

Name and surname: Maruza Mammadova

Fo ren sic med i cal ex am i na tion per formed on: 20 March 1992 On the ba sis of the de ci sion of: Office of the Public Prose cu tor for Karabakh Per formed by: F.Ch.Abbasov, med i cal fo ren sic ex pert Place of fo ren sic med i cal ex am i na tion: The mosque of the Aghdam city

Con clu sion:

I Eyes are put out, mam mary glands and nose are excised. II In ju ries were inflicted by a sharp weapon and led to blood flow and shock. III The fore go ing in ju ries im mi nently caused death.

Name and surname: Zamina Valiyeva

Fo ren sic med i cal ex am i na tion per formed on: 27 Feb ru ary 1992 On the ba sis of the de ci sion of: E.A.Mikayilov, In ves ti ga tor for Par tic u larly Impor tant Cases at the Of fice of Public Pros e cu tor of the Re pub lic of Azerbaijan Per formed by: G.Jafarov, med i cal fo ren sic ex pert Place of fo ren sic med i cal ex am i na tion: Pa thol ogy and Fo ren sic Ex am i na tion Depart m ent of the Barda district Con clu sion:

I First- and sec ond-de gree frost bite of both legs. II Frost bite is the re sult of the body be ing ex posed to ex tremely low temper a ture. III The de scribed in juries are diag nosed as trivial inju ries and lead to short-term decay of health. 29 KHOJALY TRAGEDY Fo ren sic med i cal ex am i na tion re ports

Men

Name and surname: Igbal Aslanov

Fo ren sic med i cal ex am i na tion per formed on: 26 Feb ru ary 1992 On the ba sis of the de ci sion of: Office of the Public Prose cu tor for Karabakh Per formed by: M.F.Khajiyev, med i cal fo ren sic ex pert Place of fo ren sic med i cal ex am i na tion: The mosque of the Aghdam city

Con clu sion:

I Sec ond-de gree burns on the whole sur face of body, both eyes and male geni tal or gans are ex - cised. De struc tion of the cra nium. Perfo rat ing bul let wounds on the chest. II Burns are re sult of the body be ing ex posed to ex tremely high temper a ture and flames. Wounds were in flicted with both blunt and sharp weapons. Bul let wounds were caused by the fire-arms. III The de scribed in flicted in ju ries al to gether pre sented a le thal in jury, which im mi nently re sulted in death.

Name and surname: Ch.Farzaliyev

Fo ren sic med i cal ex am i na tion per formed on: 26 Feb ru ary 1992 On the ba sis of the de ci sion of: Of fice of the Pub lic Pros e cu tor of the Repub lic of Azerbaijan Per formed by: E.Musayev, med i cal fo ren sic ex pert Place of fo ren sic med i cal ex am i na tion: The mosque of the Aghdam city

Con clu sion:

I Third-de gree burns on about 100% of the head, body, upped and lower limbs surface, ears and lips com pletely car bon ized. II In ju ries are the re sult of the body be ing ex posed to ex tremely high temper a ture and flames. III The de scribed in flicted in ju ries al to gether pre sented a le thal in jury, which im mi nently re sulted in death.

Name and surname: A.Huseynov

Fo ren sic med i cal ex am i na tion per formed on: 26 Feb ru ary 1992 On the ba sis of the de ci sion of: Of fice of the Pub lic Pros e cu tor of the Repub lic of Azerbaijan Per formed by: E.Musayev, med i cal fo ren sic ex pert Place of fo ren sic med i cal ex am i na tion: The mosque of the Aghdam city

30 KHOJALY TRAGEDY Fo ren sic med i cal ex am i na tion re ports

Con clu sion:

I Third-de gree burns on about 100% of the head, body, upped and lower limbs surface, forth-de - gree burns on the right hand and toes. II In ju ries are the re sult of the body be ing ex posed to ex tremely high temper a ture and flames. III The de scribed in flicted in ju ries al to gether pre sented a le thal in jury, which im mi nently re sulted in death.

Name and surname: J.Rajabov

Fo ren sic med i cal ex am i na tion per formed on: 26 Feb ru ary 1992 On the ba sis of the de ci sion of: Of fice of the Pub lic Pros e cu tor of the Repub lic of Azerbaijan Per formed by: E.Musayev, med i cal fo ren sic ex pert Place of fo ren sic med i cal ex am i na tion: The mosque of the Aghdam city

Con clu sion:

I Third-de gree burns on the head, body, upped and lower limbs. II In ju ries are the re sult of the body be ing ex posed to ex tremely high temper a ture and flames. III The de scribed in flicted in ju ries al to gether pre sented a le thal in jury, which im mi nently re sulted in death.

Name and surname: Gachay Khalilov

Fo ren sic med i cal ex am i na tion per formed on: 26 Feb ru ary 1992 On the ba sis of the de ci sion of: Office of the Public Prose cu tor for Karabakh Per formed by: M.F.Khajiyev, med i cal fo ren sic ex pert Place of fo ren sic med i cal ex am i na tion: The mosque of the Aghdam city

Con clu sion:

I Destruc tion of cra nial bones. Bul let wounds on the chest. II Destruc tion of cra nial bones was caused by a blow of a blunt ob ject. Bul let wounds were caused by the fire-arms. III The de scribed in flicted in ju ries al to gether pre sented a le thal in jury, which im mi nently re sulted in death.

Name and surname: Agayari Imani

Fo ren sic med i cal ex am i na tion per formed on: 26 Feb ru ary 1992 On the ba sis of the de ci sion of: Of fice of the Pub lic Pros e cu tor 31 KHOJALY TRAGEDY Fo ren sic med i cal ex am i na tion re ports

of the Repub lic of Azerbaijan Per formed by: E.Musayev, med i cal fo ren sic ex pert Place of fo ren sic med i cal ex am i na tion: The mosque of the Aghdam city

Con clu sion:

I Third- and forth-de gree burns on about 100% of head and body sur face. II In ju ries are the re sult of the body be ing ex posed to ex tremely high temper a ture and flames. III The fore go ing in ju ries im mi nently caused death.

Name and sur name: S.Huseynov

Fo ren sic med i cal ex am i na tion per formed on: 27 Feb ru ary 1992 On the ba sis of the de ci sion of: Office of the Public Prose cu tor for Karabakh Per formed by: E.Musayev, med i cal fo ren sic ex pert Place of fo ren sic med i cal ex am i na tion: The mosque of the Aghdam city

Con clu sion:

I Third- and forth-de gree burns on about 100% of head, body, upped and lower limbs surface. II In ju ries are the re sult of the body be ing ex posed to ex tremely high temper a ture and flames. III The fore go ing in ju ries im mi nently caused death.

Name and surname: Natig Azimov

Con clu sion:

I First- and sec ond-de gree burns on the parts of the body, per forat ing bul let wound on the back. The male geni tal or gans are excised. II Burns are causes by the fire-arms. Perfo rat ing wound on the back is the re sult of the long dis tance fire. The exci sion of male geni tal or gans was caused by a thrust weapon. III The de scribed in flicted in ju ries al to gether pre sented a le thal in jury, which im mi nently re sulted in death.

32 KHOJALY TRAGEDY Fo ren sic med i cal ex am i na tion re ports

Name and surname: Tavakkul Alakbarov

Con clu sion:

I Ten per forat ing wounds on the chest and ab domen, two bullet wounds on both the right and left sides of the back. II Per forat ing wounds were caused by a thrust weapon. III In ju ries led to blood flow and shock. IV The de scribed in flicted in ju ries al to gether pre sented a le thal in jury, which im mi nently re sulted in death.

Name and sur name: Telman Orudjov

Fo ren sic med i cal ex am i na tion per formed on: 27 Feb ru ary 1992 Per formed by: N.Ch.Amanov, med i cal fo ren sic ex pert Place of fo ren sic med i cal ex am i na tion: The morgue of the Aghdam city

Con clu sion:

I Wound on the head, bruises on the chest and multi ple frac tures of ribs. II Wounds were caused by the fire-arms and by blows of a blunt ob ject. III The de scribed in flicted in ju ries al to gether pre sented a le thal in jury, which im mi nently re sulted in death.

Name and sur name: Baha dur Salimov

Fo ren sic med i cal ex am i na tion per formed on: 27 Feb ru ary 1992 On the ba sis of the de ci sion of: Office of the Public Prose cu tor for Karabakh Per formed by: M.F.Khajiyev, med i cal fo ren sic ex pert Place of fo ren sic med i cal ex am i na tion: The mosque of the Aghdam city

Con clu sion:

I Sec ond- and third-de gree burns on the whole body sur face, frac ture of the cra nium. Perfo rat ing wound on the chest, male ge nial or gans are ex cised. II Burns were caused by the fire-arms. Fracture of the cranium was caused by a blunt object. Perfo - rat ing wound on the chest was caused by the fire-arm. Male geni tal or gans were excised by a sharp weapon. 33 KHOJALY TRAGEDY Fo ren sic med i cal ex am i na tion re ports

III The de scribed in flicted in ju ries al to gether pre sented a le thal in jury, which im mi nently re sulted in death.

Name and surname: Bahman Bahmanov

Fo ren sic med i cal ex am i na tion per formed on: 27 Feb ru ary 1992 Per formed by: S.V.Gasimov, med i cal fo ren sic ex pert Place of fo ren sic med i cal ex am i na tion: The morgue of the Aghdam city

Con clu sion:

I Nine cut wounds on the back and chest, one bul let wound on the left side of the chest. II Cut wounds were in flicted by a sharp weapon. Bullet wound was caused by the fire-arms. III In ju ries led to blood flow and shock IV The de scribed in flicted in ju ries al to gether pre sented a le thal in jury, which im mi nently re sulted in death.

Name and surname: Ali Abishov

Fo ren sic med i cal ex am i na tion per formed on: 27 Feb ru ary 1992 On the ba sis of the de ci sion of: Office of the Public Prose cu tor for Karabakh Per formed by: M.F.Khajiyev, med i cal fo ren sic ex pert Place of fo ren sic med i cal ex am i na tion: The mosque of the Aghdam city

Con clu sion:

I Fractures of upper and lower limbs. Multi ple fractures of ribs. II In ju ries were inflicted by blows of a blunt ob ject. III The fore go ing in ju ries im mi nently caused death

Name and surname: Samuray Karimov

Con clu sion:

I One bul let wound on the chest filled with bul let car tridge, eye balls are missing, wounds on the back. II Bullet wound on the chest was caused by the fire-arms, eye balls were put out by a sharp weapon, wounds on the back were in flicted by blows with bot tle. 34 KHOJALY TRAGEDY Fo ren sic med i cal ex am i na tion re ports

III In ju ries led to blood flow and shock IV The de scribed in flicted in ju ries al to gether pre sented a le thal in jury, which im mi nently re sulted in death.

Name and surname: Eldar Mammadov

Fo ren sic med i cal ex am i na tion per formed on: 28 Feb ru ary 1992 Per formed by: S.V.Gasimov, med i cal fo ren sic ex pert Place of fo ren sic med i cal ex am i na tion: The morgue of the Aghdam city

Con clu sion:

I Three bul let wounds on the right ear and on the right cheek. Two in ju ries on the front and on the left side of the fore head. Cut wounds un der the right and left col lar-bones, on the left breast and on the both 6th and 7th left ribs. II Bullet wounds were caused by the fire-arms. Cut wounds were inflicted by a blunt object. III In ju ries led to blood flow and shock. IV The de scribed in flicted in ju ries al to gether pre sented a le thal in jury, which im mi nently re sulted in death.

Name and surname: Etibar Najafov

Con clu sion:

I Inju ries on the left hip, toes are splintered. II In ju ries were inflicted by blows of a blunt ob ject. III The de scribed inju ries are di ag nosed as trivial in ju ries and lead to long-last ing de cay of health.

Name and sur name: Elshan Allahverdiev

Fo ren sic med i cal ex am i na tion per formed on: 1 March 1992 On the ba sis of the de ci sion of: E.A.Mikayilov, In ves ti ga tor for Par tic u larly Impor tant Cases at the Of fice of Public Pros e cu tor of the Re pub lic of Azerbaijan Per formed by: U.M. Mikayilov, med i cal fo ren sic ex pert 35 KHOJALY TRAGEDY Fo ren sic med i cal ex am i na tion re ports

Con clu sion:

I The chest is com pressed, closed craniocerebral injury, concus sion of the brain. II In ju ries were inflicted by blows of a blunt ob ject. III The described inju ries are di agnosed as severe inju ries and lead to long-last ing decay of health.

Name and sur name: Elbrus Abbasov

Fo ren sic med i cal ex am i na tion per formed on: 1 March 1992 On the ba sis of the de ci sion of: E.A.Mikayilov, In ves ti ga tor for Par tic u larly Impor tant Cases at the Of fice of Public Pros e cu tor of the Re pub lic of Azerbaijan Per formed by: L.A.Abbasov, med i cal fo ren sic ex pert Place of fo ren sic med i cal ex am i na tion: Sana to rium of the Naftalan city (Rus sian Fed er a tion)

Con clu sion:

I In ju ries on the fifth finger of the right hand and on both haunches. Scars on the front side of the chest. II In ju ries were inflicted by blows of a blunt ob ject, scars are the re sult of blows of a hot ob ject. III The described inju ries are di agnosed as trivial in juries and lead to short-term decay of health.

Name and surname: Gayyum Aslanov

Fo ren sic med i cal ex am i na tion per formed on: 1 March 1992 On the ba sis of the de ci sion of: E.A.Mikayilov, In ves ti ga tor for Par tic u larly Impor tant Cases at the Of fice of Public Pros e cu tor of the Re pub lic of Azerbaijan Per formed by: A.Z.Sultanov, med i cal fo ren sic ex pert Place of fo ren sic med i cal ex am i na tion: Pa thol ogy and Fo ren sic Ex am i na tion Depart m ent of the Agdjabedi district

Con clu sion:

I Fractures of 6th, 7th and 8th left ribs, ali mentary cachexy. II In ju ries were inflicted by blows of a blunt ob ject. III The described inju ries are di agnosed as severe inju ries and lead to long-last ing decay of health.

36 KHOJALY TRAGEDY Fo ren sic med i cal ex am i na tion re ports

Name and surname: Jamal Orujov

Fo ren sic med i cal ex am i na tion per formed on: 1 March 1992 On the ba sis of the de ci sion of: E.A.Mikayilov, In ves ti ga tor for Par tic u larly Impor tant Cases at the Of fice of Public Pros e cu tor of the Re pub lic of Azerbaijan Per formed by: V.Xidirov, med i cal fo ren sic ex pert Place of fo ren sic med i cal ex am i na tion: Re pub li can Clin i cal Hos pi tal

Con clu sion:

I Avulsed wound under the right eye, in ju ries on the head. II In ju ries were inflicted by blows of a blunt ob ject. III The described inju ries are di agnosed as trivial in juries and lead to short-term decay of health.

Name and surname: Yashar Almammadov

Fo ren sic med i cal ex am i na tion per formed on: 1 March 1992 On the ba sis of the de ci sion of: E.A.Mikayilov, In ves ti ga tor for Par tic u larly Impor tant Cases at the Of fice of Public Pros e cu tor of the Re pub lic of Azerbaijan Per formed by: I.Ch.Aliyev, med i cal fo ren sic ex pert Place of fo ren sic med i cal ex am i na tion: Pa thol ogy and Fo ren sic Ex am i na tion Depart m ent of the Yevlakh district

Con clu sion:

I Bruises on the body, simple frac ture of the fifth fin ger of the right hand, con cus sion of the brain, closed craniocerebral in jury. II These in ju ries were inflicted by blows of a blunt ob ject. III The described inju ries are di agnosed as mean inju ries and lead to short-term decay of health.

Name and surname: Jumali Usmanov

Fo ren sic med i cal ex am i na tion per formed on: 27 April 1992 On the ba sis of the de ci sion of: I.I.Ahmadov, Assis tant of the Pub lic Prose cu tor of the Saatly district Per formed by: N.J.Amanov, med i cal fo ren sic ex pert Place of fo ren sic med i cal ex am i na tion: Out pa tient clinic

37 KHOJALY TRAGEDY Fo ren sic med i cal ex am i na tion re ports

Con clu sion:

I Simple frac ture of the left hand, ampu ta tion of the fin ger-nail of the left hand, four wounds on the left hand, chest and back. II In ju ries were inflicted by blows of a blunt ob ject and bludgeon, as well as by kicks and punch. III The described inju ries are di agnosed as mean inju ries and lead to long-term decay of health.

Name and surname: Yusif Karimov

Fo ren sic med i cal ex am i na tion per formed on: 1 March 1992 On the ba sis of the de ci sion of: E.A.Mikayilov, In ves ti ga tor for Par tic u larly Impor tant Cases at the Of fice of Public Pros e cu tor of the Re pub lic of Azerbaijan Per formed by: N.G. Iskandarov, med i cal fo ren sic ex pert Place of fo ren sic med i cal ex am i na tion: Pa thol ogy and Fo ren sic Ex am i na tion Depart ment of the Aghdash district Con clu sion:

I Craniocerebral in jury, se vere con cus sion of the brain. II In ju ries were inflicted by blows of a blunt ob ject. III The described inju ries are di agnosed as severe inju ries and lead to long-last ing decay of health.

Name and surname: Yavar Aliyev

Con clu sion:

I In fectious bul let wounds on the left el bow and on the right haunch. II Inju ries were caused by the fire-arms. III The described inju ries are di agnosed as mean inju ries and lead to long-term decay of health.

Name and surname: Sharif Mammadov

Fo ren sic med i cal ex am i na tion per formed on: 27 Feb ru ary 1992 On the ba sis of the de ci sion of: E.A.Mikayilov, In ves ti ga tor for Par tic u larly Impor tant cases at the Office of Public Pros e cu tor of the Re pub lic of Azerbaijan 38 KHOJALY TRAGEDY Fo ren sic med i cal ex am i na tion re ports

Per formed by: G.Jafarov, med i cal fo ren sic ex pert Place of fo ren sic med i cal ex am i na tion: Pa thol ogy and Fo ren sic Ex am i na tion Depart m ent of the Barda district.

Con clu sion:

I Exci sion of the fifth finger of the left hand, frac tures of 3rd and 4th fin gers. II In ju ries were inflicted by both sharp and blunt ob jects and led to in fection. III The described inju ries are di agnosed as mean inju ries and lead to long-term decay of health.

Chil dren

Name and surname: Aynura Zeynalova (six years old)

Con clu sion:

I Bullet wounds on the left temple and left up per arm caused by the fire-arms. II In ju ries led to blood flow and shock. III The fore go ing in ju ries im mi nently caused death.

Name and surname: Aysel Mehdiyeva (six years old)

Con clu sion:

I Two bullet wounds on the chest. II Bullet wounds were caused by the fire-arms. III In ju ries led to blood flow and shock IV The fore go ing in ju ries im mi nently caused death.

39 KHOJALY TRAGEDY Fo ren sic med i cal ex am i na tion re ports

Name and surname: Halala Orudjeva (three years old)

Con clu sion:

I Three bul let wounds on the head, chest and left hip, one cut wound on the heart. II Bullet wounds were caused by the fire-arms and led to complete de struc tion of the head, cut wound was inflicted by a sharp weapon. III The de scribed in flicted in ju ries al to gether pre sented a le thal in jury, which im mi nently re sulted in death.

Name and surname: Aynur Zeynalova (six years old)

Con clu sion:

I Two bullet wounds and one avulsed wound on the chest, one in jury on the left side of the fore - head. II Bullet wounds were caused by the fire-arms, avulsed wound was caused by a sharp weapon. In - jury on the forehead was caused by shackles. III In ju ries led to blood flow and shock. IV The de scribed in flicted in ju ries al to gether pre sented a le thal in jury, which im mi nently re sulted death.

Name and surname: Ziya Abbasov (two years old)

Fo ren sic med i cal ex am i na tion per formed on: 3 March 1992 On the ba sis of the de ci sion of: E.A.Mikayilov, In ves ti ga tor for Par tic u larly Impor tant Cases at the Of fice of Public Pros e cu tor of the Re pub lic of Azerbaijan Per formed by: A.A.Mammadov, med i cal fo ren sic ex pert Place of fo ren sic med i cal ex am i na tion: Re pub li can Neu ro sur geon Hos pi tal

40 KHOJALY TRAGEDY Fo ren sic med i cal ex am i na tion re ports

Con clu sion:

I One wound on the sur face of the right cheek-bone and ear. II Injury was caused by bullet from the fire-arm. III The de scribed injury is di ag nosed as mean injury and lead to short-term decay of health.

Name and surname: Salatin Ahmadova (one year old)

Fo ren sic med i cal ex am i na tion per formed on: 19 September1992 On the ba sis of the de ci sion of: E.A.Mikayilov, In ves ti ga tor for Par tic u larly Impor tant Cases at the Of fice of Public Pros e cu tor of the Re pub lic of Azerbaijan dated 3 March 1992 Per formed by: I.Azmammadov, med i cal fo ren sic ex pert Place of fo ren sic med i cal ex am i na tion: Emer gency clinic

Con clu sion:

I First- and sec ond-de gree frost bite of both leg’s toes. II Frost bite is the re sult of the body be ing ex posed to ex tremely low temper a ture. III The described inju ries are di agnosed as mean inju ries and lead to long-term decay of health.

Name and surname: Gunel Hamzayeva (three years old)

Fo ren sic med i cal ex am i na tion per formed on: 16 De cem ber 1992 On the ba sis of the de ci sion of: Z.B.Allahverdiyev, In ves ti ga tor for Par tic u larly Impor tant Cases at the Of fice of Public Pros e cu tor of the Re pub lic of Azerbaijan Per formed by: I.K.Mammadov, med i cal fo ren sic ex pert Place of fo ren sic med i cal ex am i na tion: Pa thol ogy and Fo ren sic Ex am i na tion Depart m ent of the Beylagan dis trict

Con clu sion:

I Wound on the left side of the chest. II This wound was caused by mis sile fragm ent. III The de scribed injury is di ag nosed as trivial in jury and lead to short-term decay of health.

41 KHOJALY TRAGEDY Fo ren sic med i cal ex am i na tion re ports

Name and surname: Nigar Amirova (four years old)

Fo ren sic med i cal ex am i na tion per formed on: 29 Jan u ary 1993 On the ba sis of the de ci sion of: Z.B.Allahverdiyev, In ves ti ga tor for Par tic u larly Impor tant cases at the Office of Public Pros e cu tor of the Re public of Azerbaijan dated 16 De cem ber 1992 Per formed by: J.T.Allahverdiyev, med i cal fo ren sic ex pert Place of fo ren sic med i cal ex am i na tion: Gen eral Am bu la tory and Pa thol ogy and Fo ren sic Ex am i na tion De part ment

Con clu sion:

I Bullet wounds on the left haunch and on the right hip. II Inju ries were caused by the fire-arms. III The described inju ries are di agnosed as trivial in juries and lead to short-term decay of health.

El derly

Name and surname: Mamad Mammadov (sixty years old)

Fo ren sic med i cal ex am i na tion per formed on: 1 March 1992 On the ba sis of the de ci sion of: E.A.Mikayilov, In ves ti ga tor for Par tic u larly Impor tant Cases at the Of fice of Public Pros e cu tor of the Re pub lic of Azerbaijan Per formed by: M.S.Ismayilov, med i cal fo ren sic ex pert Place of fo ren sic med i cal ex am i na tion: The mosque of the Aghdam city

Con clu sion:

I Sim ple fractures of 9th and 10th hips, wound on the head. II In ju ries were inflicted by blows of a blunt ob ject. III The described inju ries are di agnosed as mean inju ries and lead to short-term decay of health

42 KHOJALY TRAGEDY

Khagani and 30-40 in hab it ants of Khojaly and TESTIMONIES OF THE the Garadagli village, whose names I can’t re - INHABITANTS OF KHOJALY mem ber now. One Arme nian hit my mouth with the bar rel of AKM ma chine gun and torn my up- TAKEN HOSTAGE BY THE per lip. I have a scar left as a result of that injury. 1 The in hab it ant of Khojaly, trac tor driver Huseyn, ARMENIAN SIDE went mad after be ing beaten by the Ar meni ans, he was laugh ing all the time and that’s why they Elshad Allahverdi Agayev: killed him there. When the Ar meni ans found out that the other in hab it ant of Khojaly Elkhan was After the sei zure of Khojaly over the night from “Alazan” rifle m an, they cut his belly with a knife 25 to 26 Feb ru ary 1992 I had to leave the town and took him some where. Later we heard that with my family. But dur ing the skir mish we lost Elkhan had died from the re ceived in ju ries. They each other. Later I be gan to look for them but took young boy Khagani somewhere, and we could find only my sister Durdana wounded in have n’t heard anything about him since then. her leg in the place called Garagaya in the They took machine-gun ner Natig somewhere Aghdam district. too.

On 26 Febru ary 1992, at about 8.00-9.00 a.m., I re mem ber that on 27 Feb ru ary 1992 I was the Ar meni ans opened fire, and we tried to es - brought to the cell of that Depart m ent. Here the cape and hide in the trench towards Garagaya Ar me ni ans, fol low ing Karo’s in struc tions, un - along with 5-6 men, but were sur rounded and dressed peo ple and be gan to beat them with cap tured. Abus ing and beat ing us with the bar - pieces of iron un til they lost con scious ness. That rels of machine guns, pieces of wood and iron night they were beat ing me too, but before they they forced us to walk by foot to the high way in started I saw that they had brought into the cell a Askeran. The Ar meni ans were throw ing stones, young boy Mobil who had worked at the bread pieces of wood and shoot ing over our heads. shop in Khojaly. Karo wounded Mobil’s leg They were beat ing and tor tur ing me and my sis - from the fire-arm and he fell down. Then they ter Durdana for about thirty min utes, and af ter be gan to beat him. I don’t know what happened that they brought us to the iso la tor of the Askeran to him later. I think they killed him. Police Depart m ent and threw to the cell full of peo ple. Here they tor tured us more cru elly. Tor - The Arme ni ans by pin cers tore the beard from tures were led by Karo, an Ar menian who was the one side of Ilgar’s face, leav ing the other the head of the Fire Pre ven tion Di vi sion at that hairy, and then be gan to mock and abuse him. Depart m ent. Karo with the other Arm eni ans in Fol lowing Karo’s in struc tions, they did not give mili tary uniform were beating peo ple in the cells us bread and water. with ba tons, bar rels of machine guns, pieces of wood and iron, drag ging women by hair to the On 1 March 1992 Karo shot Shahmali’s son Faiq cor ri dors, rap ing and then throwing to sep a rate in the yard of that Police De part ment for not cells. naming Ganja as “Kirovabad”. I did n’t see it by myself, but I learnt that from the inhab it ants of On 26 Febru ary 1992, at about 12.00-13.00 a.m., Khojaly whose names I can’t re mem ber now. I 7-8 drunk Ar me ni ans in mil i tary uni form en tered heard Faiq’s screams while Karo and his as sis - the cell and be gan to beat Zulfi, Elkhan, Nasib, tants were tortur ing him in the adja cent cell. He

1 Prepared on the basis of the records of the criminal case investigating by the Prosecutor General’s Office of the Republic of Azerbaijan.

43 KHOJALY TRAGEDY Testi mo nies of the in habit ants of Khojaly taken hostage by the Arme nian side

was a very brave man. He abused the Arm eni ans and cat tle dung. for their cruelty, and they be gan to tor ture him more severely. On 1 March 1992 they brought us to the Askeran Police Depart ment where we were met by police In March 1992 they put me, my sis ter Durdana offi cer Karo who had worked there as the head of and two 12-13- years-old girls from Khojaly, the Fire Preven tion Divi sion. Karo told me that I whom I did not know, in UAZ car and brought us would die. They gath ered us in the tempo rary to the Azerbaijan side. cell and began to search us. Karo or dered me, Isa and Elkhan to stay in the cell and sent the oth ers Yashar Shahmali Alimammadov: out. When my son started to cry wish ing to stay with me, he cruelly beat him. He knocked me Over the night from 25 to 26 Feb ru ary 1992, af - down by blowing with a bar rel of pis tol and or - ter the sei zure of Khojaly, I had to leave the town dered about 10-12 bearded Ar meni ans to beat me with my wife Saida, six-years-old son Siraj, my with a baton. I lost conscious ness because of father Shahmali, my cousin Saadat and other rel - these blows. When I came to senses, Elkhan told a tives. On 27 Feb ru ary 1992, at about me that they had been blow ing me with a baton 10.00-11.00 a.m., an armed Ar meni ans sur - for more than 50 times, and even when I had lost rounded and cap tured us near the Pirjamal vil- con scious ness. Early in the morning on 2 March lage. They put sacks on our heads and brought 1992 they re leased us. somewhere in a car. When they took sacks away we found ourselves in the sta ble where cattle, Af ter return ing from captiv ity, I heard from donkeys and sheep were kept. There I saw about Khojaly in hab it ants Valeh, my uncle Mammad, 200-300 in hab it ants of Khojaly, in clud ing Jamil, Janan (now dead), Ilgar, Ilham (now women and el derly, as well as my son, my fa- dead), Durdana (she worked as the tele phone op - ther-in-law Jamil, my brother Faiq and the oth - er a tor at the Khojaly post of fice), and his brother ers. Then they brought my brother Namiq. The Elshad, who were taken hostage at the Askeran Ar meni ans took money, gold, jewelry and other Police De part ment, what had happened with valu able things away from peo ple, put them in a Faiq. Thus, ac cord ing to them, Karo asked my big pot and said that for them they would buy brother Faiq where he had stud ied. After he an - weapons and kill Azerbaijanis. swered “in Ganja”, Karo ordered to name it “Kirovabad”, but Faiq again repeated “Ganja”. That day, at 16:00 p.m., about 20 bearded men in Then Karo asked Faiq: “To whom does both civil and mili tary uniform s entered the sta - Karabakh be long?”, and Faig an swered: ble with pieces of re in forcing steel, wood and “Karabakh be longs to us”. Af ter that Karo took machine guns, di vided us into sev eral groups and his gun out and shot at his chest and throat in the be gan to beat cruelly by hit ting our heads, backs yard of the Po lice De part ment and thus killed and legs. They were push ing peo ple one to an - him. other. There were peo ple with bro ken ribs, teeth and in jured heads. By pin cers they also pulled At pres ent I am the sec ond group in valid be cause out golden teeth. They hit me in my nose with a of the inju ries received in the captiv ity. bar rel of machine gun and broke it. I lost con - sciousness because of pain and, after coming to Zulfu Ibrahim Mammadov: senses, could not see for a while. Af ter beat ing us cruelly and threaten ing with the fire-arms, they Over the night from 25 to 26 Feb ru ary 1992 the made us stand on one foot for hours and eat soil Ar me ni ans sur rounded and shelled Khojaly

44 KHOJALY TRAGEDY Testi mo nies of the in habit ants of Khojaly taken hostage by the Arme nian side town. With my fam ily we tried to break out of the Mehman and Arif were there at the time we were en cir cle ment, but the Ar me ni ans cap tured us and brought. They were also sub jected to tor tures. put into the cell. There were more than 25 of my About 8 days later they brought us to the place coun try men. The Ar me ni ans tor tured and beat us called Gala and cruelly beat us again. There were ev ery day; some of us were killed, shot and be - Mir za, Yunus, Huseyn, Ibrahim, Ali, my broth- headed. I re mem ber the fol lowing: ers Ilham and Saadat, and 2 men from Garadagli. They ex changed us with the help of Allahverdi 1. Fakhraddin Bahadir Salimov, born in 1960 Bagirov. - one Arm enian killed him hitting his head with a bar rel of machine gun. Mammad Jumshud Mammadov: 2. Elkhan Nasib, born in 1962 – the Ar meni - ans took him from the cell and shot. Over the night from 25 to 26 Feb ru ary 1992, af - ter the sei zure of Khojaly by the Ar meni ans, I 3. Mobil, born in 1968 – the Ar meni ans killed had to flee away with the in hab it ants of the town. him cruelly by kick ing and beat ing with With Janan Orujov, Faig Alimammadov, Kamil ba tons and bar rels of machine gun. Mammadov, Kamal, Isa, Ilgar Abishov, Yashar 4. 55-years-old Huseyn (his mother’s name Alimammadov, Mahammad Mammadov, and a was Marish) – the Arm eni ans took him group of people, whose names I forgot, we hid in from our cell to the ad ja cent one, be gan to the for est and stayed there till 28 Feb ru ary 1992. beat him cru elly and then shot. That night the Arme ni ans cap tured me and 5. Vidadi, born in 1965, and Murvat, born in brought to the farm in Nakhchevanik. There I 1974 - after tak ing away from the cell the learnt that they had killed Mammad after cap tur - Ar me ni ans be headed them. ing him and that the other hos tages were kept there. Karo Babayan headed those who cap tured 6. My neigh bor Faiq Shahmali, born in 1969 - us. He was the head of the Fire Pre ven tion Di vi - was shot by Ar menian cap tain Karo. sion and a po lice cap tain. He tor tured peo ple At the time we were in Khojaly Karo was known who were held there. There were women and as a hangm an. He was the head of the Fire Pre - chil dren among us. On 14 March 1992 they gath - ven tion Di vi sion. He was tall, broad-shoul dered ered 21 hos tages in the room of the passport of - and had black moustache. fice of the Askeran Police Depart ment. The Ar- meni ans from Karo’s group were beat ing us in Ilgar Niyaz Abishov: that room. Later on that day they brought us back to the Azerbaijani side. Before ex chang ing us Over the night from 25 to 26 Feb ru ary 1992 Ar - Karo Babayan killed Faiq Alimammadov in the meni ans sur rounded and shelled Khojaly. We yard of the De part ment. My brother Jamil were on duty that time. During the ex change of Jumshud Mammadov can confirm this. fire with the Ar meni ans my cousin Elshad was shot in his head. My mother, four broth ers, my Valeh Sa hib Huseynov: aunt’s grandsons Zahir, Elmar, his son Klos, Mobil, Guleysha and I were sur rounded near the See ing the sei zure of Khojaly over the night from Askeran district. We were brought to the 25 to 26 Feb ru ary 1992, at about 23.00 p.m., with Askeran Police Depart ment, and when we tried my wife Saadat, my uncle Zakariyya Guliyev, to es cape they had shot my aunt’s grand son from his wife Shura, their sons Akbar, Taleh, their be hind. They tor tured us by kicking and beat ing grand chil dren Sevinj and Samir we be gan to flee with ba tons and bar rels of machine guns. A po - to Askeran. When we reached the space between lice of ficer Karo tortured me severely. Natiq, 45 KHOJALY TRAGEDY Testi mo nies of the in habit ants of Khojaly taken hostage by the Arme nian side

Shelli and Dahra the Ar meni ans sur rounded us a person whose name was Faiq. On 22 March and opened the fire. We tried to hide flee ing 1992, they brought me back to the Azerbaijani away in differ ent direc tions. Then we lost each side and ex changed for 3 Ar meni ans. other. When I reached Shelli I could find my wife among those who had es caped and re turned Yusif Museyib Karimov: to the place where she had hid den. There were Salim, Durdana, Saida, Elshad and about 13-14 Before 25 Febru ary 1992 I lived in Khojaly with in hab it ants of Khojaly, whose names I can’t re - my fam ily - my wife Iltima Mohterem mem ber now. When all our bul lets were over, the Karimova, son Algayit, and daugh ters Aynura, Arm eni ans captured us. My wife died as a result Aygun and Yegana. of the bul let wound. On 26 Feb ru ary 1992 they brought us to Askeran. On our way they were Over the night from 25 to 26 Feb ru ary 1992 push ing us into the cold wa ter of the Gargar Khojaly was seized. That moment I was on duty river. They placed us in the Askeran Police De- stand ing with machine gun near the rail way. I part ment with 13-14 people at about 10.00 a.m. did not see my fam ily when I re turned home. I There they sep a rated women from men and be- went in the direc tion of the Gargar river, near gan to beat. I re mem ber Elkhan, Natiq, Salim, which I saw my fam ily and about 20-25 in hab it - Vasif (now dead), Ilgar, Saadat (now dead), ants of the town, mainly women and chil dren. At Intizam and Mehman, who were kept in my cell. that moment the Arme ni ans sur rounded us and About 15-20 hos tages were kept in each cell. opened the fire. I fired as well, but as the barrel of That eve ning Karo, who was the head of the Fire the machine gun had been over heated and Preven tion Divi sion at that the Police Depart - smashed to pieces I threw it to the river. The Ar- ment and led other bearded Arme ni ans, or dered meni ans wounded me in my right thigh and cap - to threw Elkhan, Salim, Huseyn, Natiq and me to tured us. They were bearded, I did n’t know their the cell and cruelly beat us striking with barrels names, and among them were several Russians. of ma chine guns, legs of chairs and ba tons. Cries Cruelly beat ing us with bar rels of machine guns were heard from the adja cent cells as well. Thus and pieces of wood they made us go on foot and we real ized that the Arm eni ans were beating, gath ered in the shop in Khojaly. They also rap ing and abus ing women kept there. On 28 broug ht oth ers there. There were about 30 peo - Febru ary 1992, at about 16.00-17.00 p.m., they ple. I re mem ber Huseyn Sariyev, Hasan Hasa- took me and Elkhan to the cell that was de signed nov, Alasgar, Shargiyya, and her daugh ters Ali - for Karo’s tor tures and pulled my nail out of the ma and Irada. thumb and then broke my fin gers. Dur ing the tor - ture I was loosing conscious ness for several On 26 Febru ary 1992, they put us in the bus and times. On 1 March Karo and some other bearded brought to the school for dumb in Khankendi. Arm eni ans entered the cell and beat every body. We were terri bly tortured by the Arm eni ans, Fol low ing Karo’s in struc tions, one Ar me nian whose names I didn’t know. One Ar menian tore thrust his knife into Elkhan’s chest but not very my fore head by beat ing with a bar rel of the ma- deep, so Elkhan did not die. Two hours later chine gun. They un dressed Irada, 24-years-old Karo took Elkhan, Natiq and 2 per sons (I can’t daugh ter of Shargiyya, raped her and be gan to re mem ber their names) somewhere, and I don’t beat. The Arm eni ans also raped my wife Iltima know what happened to them after wards. Then I Karimova, cut her long hair to make her look learnt that Karo took Salim, Huseyn, Araz, Vasif ugly. As the Ar meni ans struck my 6- and from the cell and shot. That day at about 20.00 – 7-years-old chil dren against the con crete floor, 21.00 p.m., when he took us to beat again, he shot they still suffer from headaches.

46 KHOJALY TRAGEDY Testi mo nies of the in habit ants of Khojaly taken hostage by the Arme nian side

Then the Arm eni ans sepa rated me from the Sahida Gurban Alakbarova: women, threw to the cellar and subjected to terri - ble tortures. My left four ribs were frac tured as a Over the night from 25 to 26 Feb ru ary 1992 the re sult of blows. One Ar menian thrust a knife into town of Khojaly was ex posed to fire opened my left shoulder and pulled it out of my bosom, from 3 di rec tions. We had to leave the town. The fired a piece of pa per and burned my hair and Arme ni ans took us hos tage along with 9 peo ple then threw me back to the cell. There I saw my in the area called Garagaya and brought to the wife, chil dren and other men and women bleed - Askeran Po lice De part ment. They took all our ing and moaning. doc uments, money and jew elry on the way there. There were about 70 women and chil dren. The On 5 March 1992, they sep a rated me from my Arme ni ans took young girls and tor tured them. fam ily, and along with Huseyn and Elbrus One day they wanted to take my 6-years-old brought to the Khankendi po lice isola tor. Here daugh ter. I didn’t let them take her and so they we were beaten by Agajanyan, the head of the be gan to tor ture me. That day my mother was Askeran Police Depart ment. Before our eyes killed for her faith. My sis ters Makhmar Husey- they killed the son of Khojaly in hab it ant nova and Mahbuba Abishova, her son Chingiz Mammadali. A week later they brought other in - and daugh ter Chinara, my brother- in-law Sohrab hab it ants of Khojaly Ganahat, Alif Hajiyev’s fa - are still missing. Along with 70 other peo ple we ther Latif Mammadov, Gayim, Gadim, Kamil were exchanged for two Arm enian corpses. As a Huseynov, Abulfat, Ali and his son Nabi. They re sult of the sei zure of the town, our house and all tortured us there too. our prop erty were plundered by the Ar meni ans.

On 16 April 1992, they brought me and Kamil to Adila Ali Nacafova: the place called Khanbagi in Khankendi, where the Ar meni ans along with the Russian sol diers Over the night from 25 to 26 Feb ru ary 1992 the were beat ing, hu mil i at ing and tor tur ing us for 5 Arm eni ans seized Khojaly, and so we were days. forced to leave the town. There were about 150-200 peo ple among us. We fled to the for est. On 20 April 1992 they brought us to Yerevan, About 200 armed Arme ni ans were shoot ing at and af ter that to Goris and Megri. There they us, and there were Russian soldiers among them kept us in the cellar where we were regu larly as well. After the heavy fire ap prox i mately 20 of beaten and abused. 150-200 peo ple sur vived. The Ar me ni ans took away our money and jewelry, by pin cers pulled On 24 July 1992 they brought me and Kamil out golden teeth, scratched women’s ears and Huseynov to the Gubadly dis trict and re leased took their ear rings. My fa ther’s and my gold us. They ex changed my fam ily mem bers in May. teeth were pulled out as well. They cru elly murdered our neighbor Jalal’s wife, daugh ter, son Because of the inju ries I re ceived during the cap- and his fiancée. They tied a man whose name tiv ity, I have a very bad sight and now undergo was Mushfig to the car and dragged him on the medi cal treatm ent at the In stitute of Eye Dis- ground be fore our eyes. His face was in jured and eases. arms fractured. His own fa ther could not rec og - nize his corpse. We were severely beaten several Besides all my property was steeled by the Ar- times a day. Among the Arm eni ans there was a me ni ans. woman whose name was Janna, and she tortured us as well. They did not even let us eat snow.

47 KHOJALY TRAGEDY Testi mo nies of the in habit ants of Khojaly taken hostage by the Arme nian side

Vugar Ali Nacafov: Many peo ple were dy ing there be ing un able to stand tortures. As a result of the seizure of the Over the night from 25 to 26 Feb ru ary 1992 the town, our house, jew elry, money, all our prop - Ar meni ans seized Khojaly at about 23.00 p.m. erty were plundered by the Ar meni ans. At that time we were on duty. Af ter they sur- rounded us and we made an attemp t to es cape Ramil Bilman Alakbarov: try ing to move towards Aghdam. There were 60-70 peo ple of us, only 20-30 peo ple sur vived. Over the night from 25 to 26 Feb ru ary 1992 I left Ar meni ans gath ered us in the house and be gan to my home town of Khojaly with my parents. That tor ture. There was a Meskhetian Turk from time I was 12 years old. We left the town and fled Uzbekistan among us whose name was Ahmed. to the for est where we stayed for 6 days. The Ar - They tied his hands and legs and be headed him. meni ans sur rounded us and be gan to shoot. I was Then they took me to Khankandi. There they wounded in my left leg. There I saw with my threw me to the cel lar, tied my hands and started own eyes that the Arme ni ans shot 16 young peo - to beat un til I lost con scious ness. They heated a ple and dropped them into the well drill with the knife and branded my legs. There are nu merous trac tor. When we wanted to flee to Aghdam the scars from knife wounds on my body. After that Arme ni ans caught us and cru elly beat my fa ther. they forced me to drink yel low medi cine. Now I They took our jew elry and money. Then they know what a medi cine it was. I have been mar - brought us to the farm located in the Aghdam ried for 9 years but I still don’t have children. dis trict and kept there for 3 days. As my leg was Having tor tured many young Azerbaijanis like seriosly wounded, my par ents tied it with the me, they made us mis er able for lifetime. As a re - string try ing to stop bleed ing. The Ar meni ans sult of all these tortures, I suffer from nervous were severely beating the hostages kept there. In dis or der, my kidneys are of ten ach ing, I can 3 days they re leased us. Af ter re turn ing from hardly stand on my feet. Our house, prop erty, captiv ity I was treated in the Aghdam hospi tal, jew elry and money were plun dered by the Ar me- and there are 12 stitches left on my leg. Now I ni ans. suffer from these inju ries. I still can’t normaly walk. My father suf fers from kidney and liver Etibar Ali Nacafov: diseases as a re sult of the tortures he was exposed to dur ing cap tiv ity. Over the night from 25 to 26 Feb ru ary 1992, at about 22.00 p.m., the Arme ni ans at tacked Asya Mushur Bidzinova: Khojaly. At that time we were on duty. Early in the morning at about 4.00-5.00 a.m. the Arme ni - I had lived in Uzbekistan be fore. We found ref- ans fired at us from the tank. As I was seri ously uge in Azerbaijan and were set tled in Khojaly. wounded, I lost con scious ness. When I came to Over the night from 25 to 26 Feb ru ary 1992 the senses I saw that the fire was ceased. The Arm e - Arme ni ans seized Khojaly. The peo ple be gan to ni ans cap tured me along with the other in hab it - flee to the for est. We hid in the base ment of our ants of Khojaly and brought to the iso la tor in house. The Ar meni ans got into this base ment Khankendi, where we were severely tor tured. and be gan to shoot. My hus band was also there. Although my left leg was se ri ously wounded, and died be cause of shots. When I wanted to they broke my right leg striking it with one metre come up to him the Ar meni ans hit my back with long iron. By pin cers they pulled out golden a barrel of machine gun. There is a scar left on teeth of a man whose name was Alasgar. He my body. They took 64 peo ple, among which could not stand tor tures and died that night. were lit tle chil dren, to Khankendi and kept there

48 KHOJALY TRAGEDY Testi mo nies of the in habit ants of Khojaly taken hostage by the Arme nian side for 3 days. Dur ing cap tiv ity they didn’t give us the Ar menian vil lage and be gan to beat cruelly. even a slice of bread. The Arm eni ans were rap- There they shot about 7-8 Azerbaijanis be fore ing young girls and reg ularly beat ing us. my eyes. Then they brought us to Askeran and threw into prison. There they kept us with out Mahir Imran Khalilov: food and water, beat us cru elly, cau ter ized burn - ing cig a rettes on the bod ies of men and women. Over the night from 25 to 26 Feb ru ary 1992 the They took away our money and jewelry. They Ar meni ans at tacked Khojaly. They burnt houses, took my gold necklace, watch, rings and ear - killed inno cent peo ple and looted all our prop - rings. When we showed resis tance they beat us erty. We fled to the forest. A day later we se verely. When we left Khojaly all our prop erty reached the vil lage of Abdal-Gulabli in Aghdam. was plun dered by the Ar meni ans. They also de - There we were sur rounded and cap tured by 30 stroyed our house. When we were cap tured my Arm enian mili tar ies. I was with my fa- two brothers-in-law were with us. One of them ther-in-law, mother-in-law, wife, brother-in-law Mikayil Zahid Guliyev commit ted sui cide. An - and two daugh ters. Chil dren were less than 1 other one, Azad Zahid Guliyev, was taken hos - year old. When we were taken hostage the Arm e - tage by the Ar meni ans and was held in cap tiv ity ni ans beat us cruelly and took to the vil lage of for 28 days. I was ex changed for the Ar menian Dahraz in the Askeran dis trict. There we were cap tives af ter be ing kept for a day in Askeran. kept in the cel lar for a week. Al though there were lit tle chil dren among us, we were kept in a cold Shahla Bahatur Safarova: with out food and water, beaten with bar rels of machine guns, blud geons and sticks. At pres ent I We were forced to leave Khojaly over the night suffer from these inju ries. I got craniocerebral from 25 to 26 Feb ru ary 1992. Along with my trauma, and my ner vous sys tem is dis or dered. hus band and our 5 chil dren we hid in the forest. When we left Khojaly our house and jew elry There we were sur rounded by the Ar meni ans. I were looted by the Ar meni ans. At the time we was wounded in my left arm at the vil lage of were taken hos tage the Ar meni ans took our Nakhchivanik. We could not move and were money. On 3 March we were released. Among cap tured. The Ar meni ans took us to Askeran and those Ar meni ans who tor tured us I re mem ber held us at the Police Depart ment. Despite the fact only Armen who was beat ing cap tives with blud- that I was wounded, they did not pro vide me any geons, bar rels of machine guns and spades. medi cal aid. Though it was very cold, we were kept in the win dowless room with out food. Dilshad Saday Guliyeva: When we left Khojaly the Ar meni ans had plun - dered our house, jewelry, money and all our Over the night from 25 to 26 Feb ru ary 1992 the property. Two days later I was re leased. Ar meni ans seized Khojaly. They killed in nocent peo ple, burnt houses and plun dered prop erty. Azad Zahid Guliyev: Those in hab it ants of Khojaly who sur vived fled away in differ ent direc tions. We fled to the forest We left Khojaly over the night from 25 to 26 and hid there. After 4 days of hid ing in the for est Febru ary 1992 and fled to the forest. My brother near Nakhchivanik about 30 Ar menian sol diers Mikayil, sister-in-law Dilshad and cousin Asif took us cap tive and brought to the Ar menian vil - were with me. My brother Mikayil com mitted lage. The weather was very frosty and they made sui cide to avoid cap tiv ity. We were taken hos - us go on foot. There were peo ple who died of tage in the place to wards Nakhchivanik. I was frost and hun ger. They threw us to the cel lar in held in cap tiv ity in Nakhchivanik, Askeran and

49 KHOJALY TRAGEDY Testi mo nies of the in habit ants of Khojaly taken hostage by the Arme nian side

Noragekh. The Ar meni ans reg ularly beat us with tured by the Ar meni ans. They ruth lessly beat me bar rels of machine guns, kept us with out food, and I lost conscious ness. When I came to senses I and cau ter ized burn ing cig a rettes on our bod ies. found myself in a hen-house. There one Ar me- When I was in Nakhchivanik the Ar meni ans shot nian be gan to beat me cru elly with a bar rel of 8 Azerbaijanis. I rem em ber inspec tor Karen machine gun. He struck me mainly in the head. from Askeran and in spec tor Samvel from Every thing went dark be fore my eyes and I fell Noragekh. They beat and ruth lessly tor tured all into a faint. When I came to senses I found my- Azerbaijanis. I was held in cap tiv ity for 14 days, self sur rounded by my rela tives in the vil lage of and then re leased along with the oth ers. Abdal-Gulabli.

Sattar Mukhtar Agayev: Sarvar Sattar Agayev:

We left Khojaly over the night from 25 to 26 We left Khojaly over the night from 25 to 26 Febru ary 1992. That day I was on duty. When I Febru ary 1992. That time I was 12 years old. I re turned home I saw nobody there. I went to - was with my two brothers and mother. We wards the forest and met my fam ily mem bers. stayed in the forest wihout food for 2 days. The weather was very frosty. We crossed the Gargar river and got soaked to the skin. I took my When the cross-fire started I was sepa rated from 10-years-old son Vusal in my arms and went on. my family, cap tured by two Ar meni ans and But my son could not stand frost and died. As my taken to the area called Agbulag. There they cru- legs freezed I could not move. In such a con di - elly beat me and after threatining for 24 hours re - tion I was ap proached by two Ar meni ans, beaten leased me. I was scared and extremely nervous. and cap tured. I wanted to take my son’s corpse By this reason I often have heart attacks, suffer but they kicked his dead body and did not let me from ner vous dis or der and have bad self-contol. take him. I was held in Dahraz, Khankendi, dur - ing my captiv ity. When I was held in the cel lar Kamil Dadash Huseynov: they asked me if I had a son who had served in the na tional army. Try ing to de ceive them I gave We left Khojaly over the night from 25 to 26 a neg a tive an swer. Then they showed me his Febru ary 1992. That day I was on duty. I hardly doc uments but I did not con fess again. They beat reached home and saw nobody there. I fled to the me, then showed me the corpse of my son, the forest and stayed there for 3 days with the other na tional army’s soldier Zahid Agayev. When I in hab it ants of Khojaly. The weather was very wanted to em brace him they beat me cruelly and frosty and foggy. That is why we lost the di rec - I lost con scious ness. By pin cers they pulled out tion. We wanted to go to the vil lage of all my teeth. Wounds on my legs be gan to rot. Abdal-Gulabli of the Aghdam dis trict. But by They did not treat me. Af ter be ing in cap tiv ity for mis take we came to the vil lage of Dahraz. There 35 days I was released. about 50-60 Arm enian mili tar ies shot at us. Many people died there. I was captured and Sardar Sattar Agayev: taken to the iso la tor in Khankendi. I re mem ber the names of people who were cap tured with me: We left Khojaly over the night from 25 to 26 Niftalin, Sattar, Samandar, Mahammed, Kamal, Febru ary 1992. Along with armed men we Alish, Abulfat. Dur ing the cap tiv ity they were helped civil ians to leave the vil lage. We were go- severely beating us with barrels of machine ing to wards the for est. Sud denly a skir mish guns. Fur ther more, they let the ci vil ians beat us. started. I was sepa rated from my friends and cap - I rem em ber very well the inspec tors Felix and

50 KHOJALY TRAGEDY Testi mo nies of the in habit ants of Khojaly taken hostage by the Arme nian side

Ar thur who were in the iso la tor. Then they Azerbaijani with a nick name Dumbay who lives brought us to Goris in Ar menia. I was held cap - at pres ent at the hostel of college ? 9 in Ganja. tive at the Yerevan Polis Depart ment and was They took him away for beating. When he re- exposed to ruthless tor tures. We were kept al- turned he told that my husband was held in the most without food. In to tal, I was held cap tive for cellar and the Arm eni ans were planning to kill us 6 months. Then they exchanged us for the Ar me- tor tur ing be fore his eyes. Then the Arme ni ans nian cap tives in Gubadli. In the re sult of tor tures asked me for several times who was that man. I I was struck by gastroenterostomy and later op - did n’t re ply any thing and they be gan to tor ture erated. After captiv ity I was told that my me. They heated rein forc ing steel and cauter ized 8-years-old daugh ter Maral had been killed by it to my body. They cut my left arm and up per the Ar me ni ans. jaw with a knife. These scars rem ain on my body now. Later I learnt that my husband Vidadi along Rahila Rashid Hajieva: with 4 other Azerbaijanis had been taken to the grave-yard by an Ar menian whose 20-years-old The Arme ni ans seized Khojaly over the night brother had been killed in the bat tle, and there he from 25 to 26 Feb ru ary 1992. They burnt houses, had be headed them on his grave. killed inno cent peo ple, plun dered our prop erty. The people were forced to leave their houses and My sister-in law Rahila Shafa Mustafayeva was flee away. At that time my husband Mustafayev also held in cap tiv ity. She was 25 years old. We Vidadi Shafa partic i pated in the battle. He served were raped by the Ar meni ans for several times. in the voluntre bat tal ion. We could not leave our They were beating us with barrels of machine house. My daugh ters Safayat, Ayshan, my son guns and blud geons and did n’t give us any food. Taleh, my sister-in-law Rahila and the fam ily of A man whose name was Karo was among the Ar- Alkhan who worked at the Khojaly Polis De part - meni ans who tor tured us. He was even more ment hid in the bath room of our house. It was cruel than the others. He was tying captives’ snowing and very frosty. Alkhan came to our arms and legs and was beating and breaking house at about 4.00-5.00 a.m. He told that the them with baton. He was cau ter iz ing burn ing Ar me ni ans had al ready oc cu pied Khojaly. The ciga rettes to their eyes and dif ferent parts of their Ar meni ans got into our house and cap tured us on bodies and raping women. He was always wear- 26 Febru ary at about 11.00 a.m. They were beat - ing mili tary uni form. The Arme ni ans took all our ing us cru elly. My daugh ter Safayat was crying: jew elry, money and docu ments. My sis - “Don’t beat my mother”. An Ar menian caught ter-in-law Rahila fell ill seri ously. As a result of and threw her from the sec ond floor. She in jured tor tures, a blood flow started. It was hard to keep her knee joint. Then the Ar meni ans started to her alive till the end of captiv ity. There we were beat Alkhan. He told us that my husband Vidadi kept in the cold and with out food. All my chil- had been wounded dur ing the bat tle and had dren fell ill. 7 days later we were exchanged for given him car tridges to shoot us to avoid cap tiv - the Ar me nian cap tives. Al though we un der went ity. Alkhan asked to forgive him for being un able med i cal treat ment af ter cap tiv ity, it was im pos si- to do that and the Ar meni ans killed him by beat- ble to save the lives of my sister-in-law Rahila ing be fore our eyes. One Ar menian took his wife. and my daughter Shafayat. My daugh ter died at His two sons were brought with us to the the age of 22, my daughter Ayshan and son Taleh Askeran Polis Depart ment. I rec ognized Ashot are al ways ailing and are under the doctor’s con- from Shushukand among the Arme ni ans who trol. I myself was oper ated. Because of received captured us. His father’s name was Ata. They craniocerebral in jury, I of ten suf fer from head - kept us in Askeran for a week. There was an aches.

51 KHOJALY TRAGEDY Testi mo nies of the in habit ants of Khojaly taken hostage by the Arme nian side

Elmira Isgandar Valiyeva: Alimammadov and Ismail. The Ar meni ans tor - tured and beat us with bar rels of machine guns The Arme ni ans seized Khojaly over the night and blud geons, and did n’t give us any food. We from 25 to 26 Feb ru ary 1992. They burnt houses, were released in a day. killed inno cent peo ple. We could hardly flee to the for est and stayed there for 5 days. The Farman Gazanfar Mammadov: weather was very frosty. We were stiffed with cold. In such a condi tion we were cap tured and The Arme ni ans seized Khojaly over the night held in cap tiv ity for sev eral days. Then they ex - from 25 to 26 Feb ru ary 1992. We were forced to changed. While stay ing in Askeran, we were se- leave our na tive land. I was 10 years old then. verely beaten with ba tons. The Ar meni ans took With my mother we fled to the forest along with my ring, necklace, ear rings and money. As a re - the other civil ians. sult of received inju ries, I often have headaches and suffer from ner vous dis or der. With out food we had to stay there in freez ing cold for 3 days. Then we were taken hos tage by Guloysha Baxtiyar Mammadova: the Arm eni ans. They severely beat us and brought to the Askeran Po lice De part ment. We left Khojaly over the night from 25 to 26 There they kept us in the cell for 10 days. There Febru ary 1992. With my son Farhad we fled to were about 20-30 peo ple. Ev ery day prison the forest. After stay ing there for 3 days we were guards were beat ing us with re in forcing steel and taken hos tage in the area of Gilinbag and then rap ing young women. They kept us without brought to the Askeran Po lice De part ment. food. I was a child and when I cried of fear the There we were held for 10 days. They severely Arme ni ans were knock ing me down and kicking. beat us, kept without food; many young women As a re sult, I got kid ney dis ease. In 10 days we were tor tured and raped. They beat us with blud - were released. Since then I was un dergo ing med- geons, pieces of iron and bar rels of machine i cal treat ment until 1996. Our house and prop - guns. I was held hos tage for 10 days. At the mo- erty were plundered by the Armenians. ment I am be ing tor mented by the in ju ries re - ceived in captiv ity. I had got craniocerebral Sevil Mursal Abdulova: trauma. I can’t sleep with out taking sleep ing pills. I often have severe headaches. I suffer from The Arme ni ans seized Khojaly over the night kid ney and stom ach-in tes tine dis eases. from 25 to 26 Feb ru ary 1992. With my fam ily - my husband and our 3 chil dren we fled to the for - Sanam Hasan Abdullayeva: est. The Ar meni ans sur rounded us. They started to shoot in the di rec tion where peo ple crowded. Over the night from 25 to 26 Feb ru ary 1992 I left My 12-years-old son Jeyhun and I were Khojaly along with my father, mother, my sisters wounded and then sep a rated from the other fam- Hadija, Tazagul, Latafat, my daughters Vusala, ily mem bers near Aghdam in the area called Khayala and my nephew Ruslan. We fled to the Garagaya. There we were taken hostage by two forest where my father, mother and sister Latafat armed Arme ni ans. A woman from Khankendi died. We stayed there for 4 days. Then we were whose name was Gulli and her son were with us. taken hos tage by the Ar meni ans near the vil lage This woman burnt all her money. When the Ar - of Pirjamal and kept in the sta ble along with meni ans saw it they killed them both. They took about 300 in hab it ants of Khojaly. While we were money and jewelry out of my bag. They brought in captiv ity an armed Arm eni ans killed Faiq us to their house in Khankendi and held there for

52 KHOJALY TRAGEDY Testi mo nies of the in habit ants of Khojaly taken hostage by the Arme nian side

3 days. The name of the house host was Sarkis. Shakhnaz Yusif Behbudova: His son Karlen Ayrumyan was impris oned in Azerbaijan. Later we were exchanged for him in Over the night from 25 to 26 Feb ru ary 1992 Askeran. Khojaly was seized. My father-in-law Shura Pashayev and mother-in-law Kubra Pashayeva Fatma Hasan Zamanova: were with us at that time. Af ter crossing the Gargar river we fled to the forest near the village As a result of the seizure of Khojaly over the of Nakhchivanik to gether with our chil dren and night from 25 to 26 Febru ary 1992, my fam ily went to wards Aghdam. But when we reached the mem bers fled away in differ ent direc tions, and I cem etery between Aghdam and Askeran the Ar - hid in the base ment prepared for pro tec tion from meni ans sur rounded us and started to shoot from bombing. There were about 100 women, men, el- machine guns. All peo ple be gan to flee away in derly and chil dren. Later the Ar menian and Rus - differ ent di rec tions. There were about 100 sian sol diers found us and started to beat with woman, chil dren, and old peo ple from the city. bar rels of machine guns, and then by kick ing My hus band Elshan Shura Pashayev and fa- pulled us out of the base ment. When I saw my ther-in-law Shura Pashayev along with the other hus band - Novruz Gulu Zamanov’s dead body I peo ple died from fire opened by the Ar meni ans. wanted to ap proach him, but an Ar menian saw it Lin ing up those who sur vived near the river-bed and kicked me so that I fell down. Then they they started to throw gre nades. Only nine men brought us to the vil lage of Mehdi. There they who man aged to flee to the pit could sur vive be - undressed a group of Azerbaijani sol diers and ing wounded. My mother-in-law Kubra was shot them before our eyes, cut their bod ies into wounded in her left hand by 2 bul lets and my leg pieces and then put one on an other. They cut was scraped. Our neighbors Elbrus, Is lam, preg nant women’s stomaches, pulled out ba bies Vugar, Gulnaz, Surayya (she died later) sur - and then started to shoot tear ing them to pieces. vived. Lin ing us up again the Ar meni ans be gan They told they would not al low the Azerbaijani to strike by differ ent ob jects, abuse and then women to bear boys be cause one day they would threw us to the basem ent of the Askeran Polis come with weapons in their arms to kill the Ar- De part ment. meni ans. They were putt ing glass bot tles into women’s wombs, knocking them down and then There they kept men sepa rately from women. jumping over them, break ing bot tles on their There were about 40-50 wounded women and stomaches and putt ing old ga loshes into their children in our cell. Tortures were horri ble. They wombs. They cut girls’ hair to make them look were exscinding women’s arms, noses and ears, ugly. They chose 50 girls and took them away to they did n’t give us any food or water, chil dren rape. The Arm eni ans undressed some men and were cry ing and wounded peo ple were moaning. tried to force them to have sex ual in ter course Sometimes the Ar meni ans were com ing to our with their daugh ters, threat en ing to be head them cell and tak ing away beau ti ful, young women if they re fuse. I don’t re mem ber the names of our and upon their re turn we knew that they had been tor tur ers. They brought those who sur vived to raped. I heard that some girls were not released the cel lar of un known build ing in Khankendi, yet. When girls’ mothers wanted to go with their and our tor tures con tin ued. I was re leased at the daughters they were beaten till the loss of con- end of March 1992. sciousness. The Arm eni ans took all our jewelry. All these tortures con tinued till the next day. We were brought back to the Azerbaijan side in the eve ning on 27 Feb ru ary 1992.

53 KHOJALY TRAGEDY

claim ing that “rec og ni tion of the in her ent dig nity CONCLUSION and of the equal and in alien able rights of all mem bers of the hu man family is the founda tion As a result of aggres sion of Ar menia against of freedom, justice and peace in the world”, quite Azerbaijan, eth nic cleansing of the terri tory of cor rectly pointed out that “dis re gard and con - Ar me nia proper and the oc cu pied ter ri to ries of tempt for human rights have re sulted in bar ba - Azerbaijan from the eth nic Azerbaijani pop ula - rous acts which have out raged the conscience of tion, there are currently alm ost one million ref u- man kind”.1 gees and IDPs in Azerbaijan, that is, ap prox i - mately one out of every eight per sons in the Conven tional rules as well as inter na tional in- coun try is an inter nally dis placed or refu gee. stru ments concluded within the framework of About 20,000 Azerbaijani cit i zens have been the United Nations, which require States to killed and 50,000 have been wounded or “pros e cute or ex tra dite”, sup port the ar gu ment maimed. A total of 900 settle ments have been about ex is tence of the cus tom ary ob li ga tion un - looted and burnt out, over 9 mil lion square me- der in ter na tional law to pros e cute those who are ters of civil ian housing, state enter prises and al leged to have com mit ted crimes against hu- social facilities have been destroyed. manity, war crimes and genocide. Further argu - ment pre clud ing the pos si bil ity of in vok ing a The most seri ous crimes of concern to the inter - State discre tion to de cide whether to ad judi cate national com munity, such as war crimes, crimes or not for the commis sion of the most seri ous in - against hu man ity and geno cide, con sti tut ing the ter national crimes is based on the jus cogens na- vi o la tion of pe remp tory norms of in ter na tional ture of in ter na tional le gal norms pro hib it ing law, have been commit ted dur ing the con flict in these crimes.2 and around the Nagorny Karabakh re gion of the Republic of Azerbaijan.

The facts mentioned above con firm that the in - tentional slaughter of the Khojaly town civil ians on 25-26 Feb ru ary 1992, in clud ing chil dren, el - derly and women, was directed to their mass exter mi na tion only be cause they were Azerbaijanis. The Khojaly town was chosen as a stage for fur ther oc cu pa tion and eth nic cleans ing of Azerbaijani terri to ries, creat ing panic and fear before the horrifying massacre.

There can not be true, long-term, sustain able peace with out jus tice, with out re spect for hu man dig nity, hu man rights and free doms. This belief has been affirm ed by the General Assem bly, almost half century ago, in the Univer sal Decla ra - tion of Human Rights, which apart from pro-

1 Universal Declaration of Human Rights, GA res. 217 A (III), 10 December 1948. For text see UN Centre for Human Rights, Human Rights: A Compilation of International Instruments, ST/HR/1/Rev.5, vol. 1 (First Part), New York & Geneva, UN 1994, pp. 1-7, at p. 1. 2 For more information see A.Yusifova, “Does international law allow societies in transition from conflict or authoritarian government to choose peace at the expense of justice? Should it?”, in “Diplomatiya Alÿmi” journal, No. 10 (2005), pp. 151-155. 54 KHOJALY TRAGEDY

PHOTOS OF VICTIMS

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56 KHOJALY TRAGEDY PHOTOS OF VICTIMS

57 KHOJALY TRAGEDY PHOTOS OF VICTIMS

58 KHOJALY TRAGEDY PHOTOS OF VICTIMS