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AN EXODUS of ethnic Armenians has nearly emptied Nagorno-Karabakh of residents since Azerbaijan attacked and ordered the breakaway region's militants to disarm, the Armenian government said on Saturday.
Nazeli Baghdasaryan, press secretary to Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, said that around 100,480 people had arrived in Armenia from Nagorno-Karabakh out of a population of some 120,000.
The exodus comes after troops from Azerbaijan staged a lightning offensive last week to reclaim the region and demanded the laying down of arms by the Armenians and the dissolution of the region's government.
Since last week around 21,076 vehicles had crossed the Hakari Bridge linking Armenia to Nagorno-Karabakh, Mr Baghdasaryan said.
The departure of more than 80 per cent of Nagorno-Karabakh's population raises questions about Azerbaijan's plans for the region.
The region's separatist ethnic Armenian government said on Thursday it would dissolve itself by the end of the year after a three-decade bid for independence.
But Mr Pashinyan says the ethnic Armenian exodus amounts to “a direct act of ethnic cleansing and depriving people of their motherland.”
Azerbaijan’s Foreign Ministry insists the mass migration by the region’s residents was “their personal and individual decision.”
After six years of separatist fighting ended in 1994 following the collapse of the Soviet Union, Nagorno-Karabakh came under the control of ethnic Armenian forces, backed by Armenia.
Then, during a six-week war in 2020, Azerbaijan took back parts of the region in the south Caucasus Mountains along with surrounding territory that Armenian forces had claimed earlier.
While Azerbaijan has pledged to respect the rights of ethnic Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh, most are fleeing because they don’t trust Azerbaijani authorities to treat them humanely or to guarantee them their language, religion and culture.
Talks have begun between officials in the Azerbaijani capital of Baku and Nagorno-Karabakh’s separatist authorities on “reintegrating” the region into Azerbaijan.
