01 March 2022, 10:39
Stepanakert commemorates victims of Sumgait pogroms
The ceremony of laying flowers at the monument to the victims of pogroms of the Armenian population in the city of Sumgait was held in Stepanakert. Human rights defenders called on the international community to give a proper legal assessment of the violence committed in Sumgait in February 1988.
The Sumgait pogroms were the ethnically-based riots that broke out in the city of Sumgait of the then Azerbaijani SSR (Soviet Socialist Republic), which occurred in evening on February 26-February 29, 1988. According to the USSR General Prosecutor's Office (GPO), 26 Armenians and six Azerbaijanis were killed in the riots; more than a hundred people were wounded; over two hundred apartments were looted; dozens of cars were burned down or smashed. According to various later sources, based on eyewitnesses' stories and analysis of death certificates, there were hundreds of casualties.
In the afternoon of February 28, at the Memorial Complex in Stepanakert, officials and residents of Nagorno-Karabakh laid flowers at the monument to the victims of the pogroms of the Armenian population in Sumgait in 1988.
The Ombudspersons of Nagorno-Karabakh and Armenia, Gegam Stepanyan and Kristine Grigoryan, have issued a joint statement on the 34th anniversary of Sumgait pogroms.
"The anti-Armenian pogroms in Sumgait marked the start of a series of crimes against humanity committed by Azerbaijan, which continue to this day," the statement says.
The human rights defenders have called on the Azerbaijani authorities to "exhibit political will and give a reliable assessment of the anti-Armenian pogroms in Sumgait, Gandzak (Kirovabad), Baku and other places and unconditionally release Armenian prisoners of war (POWs)."
Stepanyan and Grigoryan also called on the international community to "give a proper legal assessment of the violence in Sumgait in February 1988 in accordance with the basic principles and norms of the international law."
This article was originally published on the Russian page of 24/7 Internet agency ‘Caucasian Knot’ on March 1, 2022 at 02:38 am MSK. To access the full text of the article, click here.
Author: Alvard Grigoryan Source: CK correspondent
