The villages of Karmir Shuka and Taghavard in Artsakh’s Martuni region on Monday came under heavy shelling for 30 minutes by Azerbaijani forces deployed nearby, the Artsakh Defense Ministry reported.
Azerbaijani forces opened from beginning at 4 a.m. local time and continued unimpeded until 4:30 a.m.
The Azerbaijani forces, deployed in front of the villages, were using various types and various caliber small arms and heavy machine guns in the attack, Artsakh’s Human Rights Defender Gegham Stepanyan said in a statement. He also released images showing the damage from the shooting.
Two civilian homes were hit in Karmir Shuka. In one of the homes, all four members of the household, including one child, were asleep when the shooting began. A bullet struck the window and went into the bedroom.
A home in Taghavard was also damaged. Authorities found a 12.7×108mm bullet in the yard of the home fired from a DShK heavy machine gun.
“These actions are yet another evidence of Azerbaijan’s criminal conduct against the lives, physical and psychological inviolability of the people of Artsakh and Azerbaijan’s policy of ethnic cleansing against the people of Artsakh which is aimed at terrorizing those living in Artsakh and disrupting their normal lives and activities,” Stepanyan said.
Ambassador-at-large Edmon Marukyan also warned on Monday that Azerbaijan is preparing a new round of military provocations by disseminating false statements accusing the Armenian side of opening fire in various directions of the Armenian-Azerbaijani border.
In a statement, Marukyan said that last week the Azerbaijani Ministry of Defense disseminated fake reports virtually every day falsely accusing the Armenian military in opening fire in various parts of the line of contact and that the shooting was suppressed by countermeasures.
“Many are asking why Azerbaijan is carrying out this disinformation in such organized and consistent manner: we all know that whenever Azerbaijan is planning new border provocations it organizes the fake basis for the information legitimization of this provocation,” said Marukyan.
He urged the members of the international community “who are interested in the Armenian-Azerbaijani peace process and resolution of the Nagorno Karabakh conflict must very closely follow and clearly realize that Azerbaijan has again launched preparations for a provocation.”
“In this situation an international targeted reaction could prevent the new forthcoming provocation,” Marukyan said.
