Fighting between Armenian separatist forces from Nagorny Karabakh and the Azerbaijani army on Monday morning, in violation of a humanitarian truce agreement supposed to have been in force since Saturday.
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From Stepanakert, the separatist capital, an AFP journalist could hear in the morning the artillery fire coming from the southwest of the self-proclaimed republic.
Other AFP reporters in Azerbaijan heard the thud of artillery from the Terter district, located in northeast Karabakh.
As usual, the belligerents accused each other of fueling hostilities and claimed success on the battlefield.
The Azerbaijani Defense Ministry thus claimed on Twitter that the separatist forces were bombing the districts of Goranboy, Terter and Agdam and that they were “exhausted” and retreating in the Hadrut region.
The Armenian government’s information center assured him that the Azerbaijani army had been pushed back, and that it had suffered “heavy losses of life and military equipment”.
Nagorny Karabakh, a territory mainly populated by Armenians, seceded from Azerbaijan leading to a war which left 30,000 dead in the 1990s. Baku accuses Armenia of occupying its territory, and armed clashes are regular. .
The fighting between the separatist troops, supported by Armenia, and Azerbaijan since September 27 are, however, the most serious since the 1994 ceasefire.
A humanitarian truce to allow an exchange of prisoners and bodies in particular should have entered into force on Saturday noon, but it was never respected.