Atrocities and Ethnic Cleansing in Nagorno-Karabakh
Last updated August 2024
In September 2023, as news of an Azerbaijani offensive in Nagorno-Karabakh emerged, UNHR Documentation and Advocacy Fellow Anoush Baghdassarian interviewed over 50 ethnic Armenians forcibly displaced from their homes by the violence. Refugees streamed through the Lachin Corridor, the narrow bridge between the ethnic Armenian community of Nagorno-Karabakh and Armenia, sharing harrowing stories of bombardment, hunger and thirst, and loss of loved ones and homes. Alongside this on-the-ground fact-finding, UNHR also ran an online, live monitor, on which we published verified information about the unfolding situation in real time.
By the beginning of October, over the course of 11 brutal days, Azerbaijan completed the ethnic cleansing of Nagorno-Karabakh, forcing 100,000 ethnic Armenian residents to flee the enclave. This decisive escalation followed three years of rights abuses in the aftermath of the 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh War over the disputed territory.
The University Network began investigating and seeking accountability for ongoing human rights violations against ethnic Armenians in 2021 and continues to do so, including through conducting field research and advocacy.
In July 2023, students from the University of California, Los Angeles joined UNHR supervisors on the organization's fourth fact-finding trip to Yerevan, Armenia and areas on the border with Azerbaijan. Students interviewed former prisoners of war, Armenian residents of border communities, victims of torture, relatives of civilians who had been extrajudicially executed on camera, and community advocates and civil society organizations. These interviews joined the over 150 others conducted by UNHR and students from Harvard, Oxford, Wesleyan, and Yale over three years of field research.
This research culminated in the publication of We are No One: Impunity for Three Years of Atrocities against Nagorno-Karabakh's Armenians, a comprehensive account of the abuses that unfolded between the 2020 war and the fall 2023 devastation. In this report, UNHR found that since the formal end of the 2020 war, Azerbaijan has committed widespread rights abuses against ethnic Armenians within Nagorno-Karabakh and in Armenia, including: arbitrary detention, torture, enforced disappearances, unlawful killings, incitement to hatred, attacks on cultural heritage, and forced displacement. Though the alarm was raised about these abuses time and time again, the international community failed to hold Azerbaijan to account and prevent the ethnic cleansing of Nagorno-Karabakh.
UNHR’s efforts did not end there. Through 2023 and 2024, students and supervisors hosted a meeting of advocacy partners at the Yale Jackson School of Global Affairs; held community presentations on findings at Wesleyan University and UCLA; made submissions to United Nations mandate holders on torture; presented on findings and calls to action at U.S. congressional hearings and before the International Bar Association; and traveled to Geneva to speak with UN officials and other stakeholders.
During the summer of 2024, UNHR supervisors and students will return to Armenia to deepen our partnerships with affected communities seeking justice.
As our team continues its investigation and advocacy, one thing remains clear: there can be no lasting peace without accountability for human rights abuses, justice for ethnic cleansing, and protection of the right to return for Nagorno-Karabakh’s Armenians.
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