MASSACRE IN KHOJALY

On 25-26 of February 1992 Armenian Army captured Azeri town of Khojaly in northern Karabagh. Over 800 civilians were butchered in cold blood. Khojaly is a settlement of Azerbaijan situated in the strategic point on the road Agdam-Shusha, Khankendi(Stepanakert)- Askeran near the only airport in Karabakh. Its population is more then 7 thousand people.

Late on February 25 the city was under the intensive fire from the town Khankendi and Askeran. The airport and neighboring houses was destroyed. More then 150 people defending the airport were killed by sporadic artillery shelling of regiment No 366. The next day, on February 26 the fire shooting grew heavier and more fierce. After powerful artillery shelling Armenian bandits launched a massive attack. Armoured vehicles of Soviet Army regiment No 366 were in the first row of the attackers. They were followed by Armenian armed bandit units. The Armenian armed men backed by armoured vehicles killed the defenders of the districts and houses. The most valuable property and personal possessions were loaded onto the trucks and taken away towards the town of Khankendi.

Occupation of Khojaly was followed with unprecedented brutalities against the civilian population. In a few hours the aggressors killed 613 innocent and unarmed people. Among them were 106 women, 83 children. 56 people were killed with special brutality. 8 families were totally exterminated. 25 children were totally, and 130 children were partly orphaned. 476 people became disabled persons (of them 76 were minors). 1275 people were taken into hostage and even though afterwards most of the hostages were released from captivity, the fates of 150 of them are still unknown. The event had sparked the exodus of Azerbaijanis from their historic lands. Ten years on and the world is still oblivious to the suffering caused by the Armenian aggression against Azerbaijan Republic. As the result of ethnic cleansing in Karabagh, and other territories occupied by Armenians, some 1,000,000 people have been expelled from their homes and forced to live in tent-camps and railway carriages…

Newsweek 16 March 1992

By Pascal Privat with Steve Le Vine in Moscow

"Azerbaijan was a charnel house again last week: a place of mourning refugees and dozens of mangled corpses dragged to a makeshift morgue behind the mosque. They were ordinary Azerbaijani men, women and children of Khojaly, a small village in war-torn Nagorno-Karabakh overrun by Armenian forces on Feb. 25-26. Many were killed at close range while trying to flee; some had their faces mutilated, others were scalped. While the victims' families mourned,"

TIME, March 16, 1992

By Jill SMOLOWE

-Reported by Yuri ZARAKHOVICH/Moscow

While the details are argued, this much is plain: something grim and unconscionable happened in the Azerbaijani town of Khojaly two weeks ago. So far, some 200 dead Azerbaijanis, many of them mutilated, have been transported out of the town tucked inside the Armenian-dominated enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh for burial in neighboring Azerbaijan. The total number of deaths - the Azerbaijanis claim 1,324 civilians have been slaughtered, most of them women and children - is unknown.

Videotapes circulated by the Azerbaijanis include images of defaced civilians, some of them scalped, others shot in the head.