Nearly the entire ethnic Armenian population has left Nagorno-Karabakh, as the first United Nations mission arrived in the largely deserted mountainous region on Sunday.
Stephane Dujarric, the spokesperson for the UN secretary general, said the United Nations team on the ground, the first UN mission to the region in 30 years, would “identify the humanitarian needs” both for people remaining and “the people that are on the move”.
Many of the Armenians who fled Nagorno-Karabkah said they felt the international mission’s visit came too late, after Azerbaijan reclaimed the area in a lightning military operation last month.
Sitting on a bench near the central Republic Square in the Armenian capital, Yerevan, Aren Harutyunyan, who left the region known by Armenians as Artsakh last week, blamed the “international community” for the exodus.
“What is there left for the UN to monitor?” said Harutyunyan, 53, who arrived in Yerevan on Friday after a gruelling three-day journey from Stepanakert, the Nagorno-Karabakh capital.
“No one is there any more, everyone is gone, it’s a ghost town.”
Armenian authorities said that by Monday evening, more than 100,500 people, from a population of about 120,000, had fled to Armenia from Artsakh.
In footage aired by the Al Jazeera TV channel over the weekend, an empty central square in Stepanakert can be seen, littered with rubbish, abandoned prams and children’s scooters.
“Where were the international monitors when we were being starved? It is too late now,” Harutyunyan grumbled, referring to the months-long Azerbaijani blockade of the Lachin Corridor, the only road connecting Nagorno-Karabakh with Armenia.
Hunan Tadevosyan, a spokesperson for Nagorno-Karabakh’s emergency services, said on Sunday that the number of civilians left in Stepanakert could be “counted on one hand”