Baku residents take part in a memorial action on anniversary of “Black January”

Today, residents of Baku have come to a memorial on the Alley of Martyrs to honour the memory of the people who died after the entry of troops into Azerbaijan on January 20, 1990.

The “Caucasian Knot” has reported that on the night of January 20, 1990, a 35,000-strong army corps was brought into Baku in accordance with the instructions from the USSR leaders. As a result of the special operation, 137 civilians were killed, and more than 744 others were injured. Those events entered the history of Azerbaijan as “Black January”.

Today, at 10 a.m., the procession to the memorial of the victims of the introduction of troops in Baku and several districts of Azerbaijan have begun after President Ilham Aliev laid a mourning wreath at the memorial. By tradition, mass visits to the memorial will continue until the evening.

60-year-old Yalchyn Balaoglanov, a participant in the procession, compared the Azerbaijani events which took place 32 years ago with the entry of Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) troops into Kazakhstan in January 2022. “General Yazov (Soviet Defence Minister Dmitry Yazov, – note of the ‘Caucasian Knot’) said that there were 40,000 armed people in Baku and instructors from Iran who were arming the people. The information was not confirmed, just like [words of] Kassym-Jomart Tokayev about 20,000 terrorists in Kazakhstan,” Yalchyn Balaoglanov told the “Caucasian Knot” correspondent.

This article was originally published on the Russian page of 24/7 Internet agency ‘Caucasian Knot’ on January 20, 2022 at 11:54 am MSK. To access the full text of the article, click here.