YEREVAN—April 10 marks the 25th anniversary of the Maraga Massacre, where over 50 resident Armenians of the Maraga village were violently killed by Azerbaijani forces. Maraga (formerly called Leninavan) was, as a result of the attack, captured by Azerbaijan during the six-year Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh) War.
The village, a part of the Martakert region, has a population of predominantly ethnic Armenians, including Armenian refugees who had escaped pogroms in Azerbaijan.
On behalf of the Armenian Foreign Ministry, Deputy Foreign Minister Shavarsh Kocharyan issued a statement commemorating the event on Monday.
“Today marks one of the darkest, yet not widely known, pages of the Nagorno-Karabakh war, when 25 years ago Azerbaijan committed gross violations of International Humanitarian Law,” the statement read.
“Azerbaijani ‘OMON’ – Special Purpose Mobility Unit, destroyed and set on fire Maragha village of the self-determined Artsakh Republic, burned alive and tortured to death through inhuman cruelty its peaceful population. A part of the villagers was taken as a hostage – the fate of some of them is still unknown.”
The resident villagers who were under Azerbaijani control for a few hours lived through the violence and barbarism against all principles of humanitarian law, continued the Ministry.
The Ministry stated that impunity of the Maragha massacre fostered the atmosphere of permissiveness and the continuation of crimes against humanity. Azerbaijan’s continued barbaric crimes are reminded by the Four-Day War inflicted against Artsakh in 2016.
