Karabakh: Situation "very serious and tense"

The situation on the line separating Armenian and Azerbaijani forces was described as "very serious and tense" by an Armenian government spokesman on Wednesday night, as both sides in the Karabakh conflict report incidents involving civilians.

The spokesperson of the Armenian Ministry of Defence, Artsrun Hovhannesian, said that Azerbaijan fired simultaneously on a number of villages in the Tavush district. One of the communities affected was the Baghanis Settlement, where the local head posted pictures of some of the damage on his facebook page. Narek Sahakyan however said that only material damage was sustained. In the nearby village of of Koti a fifty year old woman and her son were injured and have been hospitalised.

Azerbaijan also reports incidents on Wednesday night. It claims Armenian forces shot at the villages of Alibeyli and Aghdam in the Tovuz district. In Alibeyli village the houses of Tariyel Ismayilov and Mayil Aghajanov were burned. Fire fighters were deployed to the scene. The same source said that one elderly civilian, Tofig Kazimov, received a gunshot wound to the abdomen. He was hospitalized and underwent surgery. His state is said to be critical but stable.

The incidents are the latest in a series of ongoing breaches of the cease fire that in recent days seem to have targeted civilian communities.

 

source: commonspace.eu with APA (Azerbaijan) ArmenPress (Armenia) and other agencies.

photo: Map of the Tavush Region of Armenia highlighting area of ongoing hostilities.

 

Related articles

Editor's choice
News
Despite crisis, Lebanon takes the lead to become first country in the Middle East to abolish the death penalty

Despite crisis, Lebanon takes the lead to become first country in the Middle East to abolish the death penalty

Lebanon's parliament has voted to abolish the death penalty, a move that would make it the first country in the Middle East to formally end capital punishment. A majority of MPs in the 128-seat parliament backed the measure on Tuesday (11 August), while Hezbollah's parliamentary bloc voted against it. The legislation will now go to the cabinet before being passed to President Joseph Aoun for signing. The government has already expressed its support for the measure. Lebanon has not carried out an execution since January 2004, although courts have continued to hand down death sentences. Rights groups estimate that more than 78 people remain on death row. Under the new legislation, capital punishment will be replaced with life imprisonment with hard labour. However, the legislation does not yet set out in detail how the new sentence would be enforced. Hard labour is already written into Lebanese law but has rarely been implemented in recent years. The country's financial crisis and overcrowded prisons have limited the authorities' resources and capacity. The latest legislation follows years of campaigning by civil society groups and lawyers for the removal of capital punishment from Lebanese law. (click image to read more)

Popular

Editor's choice
Interview
Thursday Interview: Murad Muradov

Thursday Interview: Murad Muradov

Today, commonspace.eu starts a new regular weekly series. THURSDAY INTERVIEW, conducted by Lauri Nikulainen, will host  persons who are thinkers, opinion shapers, and implementors in their countries and spheres. We start the series with an interview with Murad Muradov, a leading person in Azerbaijan's think tank community. He is also the first co-chair of the Action Committee for a new Armenian-Azerbaijani Dialogue. Last September he made history by being the first Azerbaijani civil society activist to visit Armenia after the 44 day war, and the start of the peace process. Speaking about this visit Murad Muradov said: "My experience was largely positive. My negative expectations luckily didn’t play out. The discussions were respectful, the panel format bringing together experts from Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Turkey was particularly valuable during the NATO Rose-Roth Seminar in Yerevan, and media coverage, while varied in tone, remained largely constructive. Some media outlets though attempted to represent me as more of a government mouthpiece than an independent expert, which was totally misleading.  Overall, I see these initiatives as important steps in rebuilding trust and normalising professional engagement. The fact that soon a larger Azerbaijani civil society visits to Armenia followed, reinforces the sense that this process is moving in the right direction." (click the image to read the interview in full)