Thread by @AHaziyev

Tomorrow, occupied #Kelbajar will be given back to Azerbaijan.

After seeing tweets by Armenian users ignoring the presence of Azerbaijani IDPs from Kelbajar, I decided to share some episodes from the occupation of Kelbajar reported by @hrw. [1/14]

Armenian forces with alleged Russian military support seized all of the Kelbajar province of Azerbaijan in a "blitzkrieg" operation that began March 27 and ended by April 5. [2/14]

Because of prior Armenian land conquests, the only outlet from Kelbajar to Azerbaijan proper was over the Murov mountains to the north through the Omar pass, a treacherous journey in winter. [3/14]

An estimated 60,000 individuals equally divided among Kurds and Azeris lived in Kelbajar province before the offensive.

In the space of a week, 60,000 people were forced to flee their homes. Today all are displaced, and Kelbajar stands empty and looted. [4/14]

Timing of the attack left the civilian population extremely vulnerable; many were taken hostage or killed by indiscriminate fire.

Civilians had little or no advance warning of the actual attack and even less time to make their escape. [5/14]

Isa, a 60 old resident of Kelbajar about his escape by a truck from Kelbajar:

"All of a sudden there was shooting and explosions. The truck stopped. The driver in the cabin, Aslan Mirzayev, and his daughter, Afat, were killed instantly. My sister died also. [6/14]

When we were taken away she was lying in the truck; later some Armenian soldiers told us she had died.

One of my brothers, Islam was badly wounded he died later.I buried him myself. [7/14]

You could see soldiers looting the houses. Some were heirding livestock out of the village; others were taking carpets and other belongings out of the houses and grouping them on the ground outside. [8/14]

By April 1, six ME-8 helicopters managed to extract several thousand women and children.

Helicopters were forced to swoop through a narrow canyon to reach a tiny, shell-pocked landing pad and then fly over a 4,000 meter mountain range to return to their base in Yevlakh. [9/14]

On noon on April 1, the last helicopter flight left Kelbajar, and no more evacuation attempts were made because of the increased shelling around the helicopter pad.[10/14]

Another wave of scarred, cold and exhausted displaced persons made its way north over the Murov mountains after the fall of the city of Kelbajar.

In all, thousands trekked over the Murov mountains to escape the Armenian offensive. [11/14]

One report estimated that 200 Azeris died, mostly from exposure, during the mountain crossing.

Some fleeing Azeris tried to hide in the mountains or simply got lost and were taken hostage. [12/14]

Less than a week after the fall of the Kelbajar, on April 7, 1993, the Azeri State Commitee on Refugees reported registering 9,582 families from Kelbajar.

The displaced from the Kelbajar offensive were housed in schools, summer camps, and hotels, and also in tents. [13/14]

These were small parts of humanitarian catastrophe happened in Kelbajar in 1993.

You can take a look at the report of @hrw called "Seven Years of conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh" (1994) to learn the humanitarian sides of the I Karabakh War. [14/14]