Another 54 servicemen were killed in battles with the enemy in the zone of the Karabakh conflict, the total number of soldiers killed since September 27 has reached 158 people. This was announced by the Deputy Minister of Defense of the unrecognized Nagorno-Karabakh Republic (NKR) Artur Sargsyan at a briefing on Friday, October 2.
“54 more servicemen were killed in the battles with the Azerbaijani Armed Forces,” Interfax quotes him.
Sargsyan added that “there are many wounded,” noting that their number is being specified.
Earlier, on September 30, the NKR Ministry of Defense reported about 104 killed servicemen of the Karabakh army.
In addition, the Ombudsman of Karabakh Artak Beglaryan wrote on his Facebook on October 1 that as a result of the shelling of the city of Martuni in the NKR, four civilians were killed and 11 more were injured. The next day, at a briefing, he said that the youngest of the wounded among the civilian population of Karabakh is two years old, a boy, his mother was also wounded, and his nine-year-old sister was killed.
The aggravation of the situation in Nagorno-Karabakh happened on September 27, when Yerevan and Baku accused each other of shelling the region and launching an offensive.
According to Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, the Turkish army is supporting the Azerbaijani forces. Ankara and Baku deny this information. At the same time, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan called for an end to the “occupation of Karabakh by Armenia.”
On October 1, the presidents of Russia, the United States and France, Vladimir Putin, Donald Trump and Emmanuel Macron, issued a joint statement on Karabakh. They strongly condemned the escalation of violence in the region, expressed condolences to the families of the victims and called for an immediate end to hostilities.
In addition, on September 29, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet called for an end to the conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh.
The conflict in Karabakh began in February 1988, when the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Region announced its secession from the Azerbaijan SSR. During the armed confrontation in 1992-1994, Baku lost control over the region and seven adjacent districts. Azerbaijan considers this territory to be its own.