Khojaly. The name of this city resonates with unbearable pain in the heart of everyone who knows about the tragedy that took place in it on February 26, 1992.

Since October 1991, Khojaly was under the blockade of the Armenian armed formations and subjected to daily shelling from artillery and heavy military equipment. Electricity was not supplied to the city, the last civilian helicopter arrived in Khojaly on January 28. Air communication was disrupted after a civilian helicopter was shot down over the city of Shusha.

Those were hungry and cold days filled with pain and grief. Those were terrible days. It is painful to talk about what happened on the night of February 25-26 even now, when 27 years have passed since the tragedy.

On the evening of February 25, military equipment of the 366th motorized rifle regiment of the former Soviet troops began to enter combat positions around the city. For two hours, tanks, armored personnel carriers and Alazan systems were shelling. After that, the Armenian armed formations stormed Khojaly.

Trying to save women, children and the elderly, the men sent them in the direction of Askeran, since the other three sides were blocked by Armenian military units. Exhausted, frostbitten, they went with all their might ... To their death. Fire was opened on unarmed Khojaly residents. Almost all of them became victims of inhuman torture and brutal murder in the Askeran-Nakhchevanik hollow.

Only a small part of the inhabitants managed to get around the killers, but many of them froze to death in the mountains.

By the time of the attack on Khojaly, about 3 thousand people remained in the city. Earlier, due to the blockade, most of the population was forced to leave their hometown.

Armenian gangs with unthinkable brutality and ruthlessness began torturing and exterminating civilians. Also involved in the attack were: 2nd Battalion of the 366th Regiment under the command of Major Seyran Ohanyan (current Minister of Defense of Armenia), the 3rd battalion under the command of Yevgeny Nabokikhin, the chief of staff of the 1st battalion Valery Isaevich Chitchyan and over 50 Armenian officers and ensigns. Prohibited 5.45 caliber rounds and chemical weapons were used during the attack.

The city was completely burned out. Among those who died on that ill-fated night were 63 small children, 106 women, 70 old people ...

During the massacre, 613 people were killed. 8 families were completely destroyed, 25 children lost both parents, 130 lost one of their parents. On the night of the tragedy, 1275 civilians were taken prisoner, the fate of 150 of them is still unknown.

1000 Khojaly residents of various ages became disabled from bullet wounds.

According to the Russian human rights center "Memorial", 200 corpses were delivered to Aghdam from Khojaly in 4 days. Facts of desecration of dozens of corpses were recorded. Center legal protection the fact of scalping of living people was also noted.

The survivors, those who did not have time to shoot, were burned alive, the eyes of children and adults were gouged out, body parts were chopped off, and the stomachs of pregnant women were cut open.

We bring to your attention the testimonies of eyewitnesses published on the Hocali.org website:

Sanubar Alekperova, resident of Khojaly:

“... Hasanabad, Mehtikend, Bozdagi - they were shooting from all sides. From the roar of the BMP entering Khojaly, the earth trembled. At first, the women and children were told to hide in cellars.

Then the head of the executive branch, Elman Mammadov, came and said that we had to save ourselves, otherwise everyone would be destroyed. The head of the airport, Alif Hajiyev, led us through the forest towards Aghdam. We were ambushed near the village of Nakhichevanik. What I saw here, I will never forget: a mountain of corpses formed. And my mother was shot. My daughters Sevinj and Hijran were wounded. At the same moment, a bullet hit me. Young women and children were dying in convulsions in the snow. We had a radio with us. We were screaming about what was happening, begging for help. But help didn't come."

Jamil Mammadov, resident of Khojaly:

“Having entered the city, tanks and armored personnel carriers destroyed houses and crushed people. Armenian fighters followed the Russian soldiers. Taking with me a 5-year-old grandson and 14 thousand rubles, I ran towards the forest. So that the child would not freeze at night, I took off my clothes and wrapped him up. But it didn't help. I had to dig with the baby in the snow. In the morning; realizing that the child would not survive, I went to the nearest Armenian village of Nakhichevanik, where we were met by armed Armenians. I begged them to take the money and let us go to Aghdam for the sake of the child. In response, they beat me, robbed me and took me to the village commandant.

He ordered us to be locked in a barn, where there were already Azerbaijani women and children. We were kept in the barn for 4 days, we were not allowed to eat or drink. But evil knows no bounds. When, after 4 days, my grandson and I were taken to the Askeran region, such a thing began there that the barn in Nakhichevanik was remembered as paradise.

Foreign mercenaries (I know the Armenian language and distinguish a local Armenian from a visitor) pulled out my toenails. The Negroes, who were among the Armenians, jumping high, kicked me in the face. After being tortured for several hours, I was exchanged for an arrested Armenian. And my grandson was taken away. I don’t know anything about the fate of my wife and daughter.”

Sariya Talybova, resident of Khojaly:

“...We were brought to the Armenian cemetery. It's hard for me to tell what happened here. 4 young Meskhetian Turks and 3 Azerbaijanis were sacrificed at the grave of an Armenian militant. The unfortunate people cut off their heads. After that, soldiers and militants began torturing and killing their children in front of their parents.

Then the corpses were thrown into the ravine with the help of a bulldozer. Then they brought two Azerbaijanis in national army uniform and gouged out their eyes with screwdrivers...”

Janan Orudzhev, resident of Khojaly:

“We tried to break through forest plantations to Aghdam, but near the village of Nakhichevanik we were met with heavy fire from soldiers and militants. Many children and women were exterminated. My son was shot. He was 16 years old. They took away my 23-year-old daughter with twin children and my second daughter, 18-year-old, pregnant.”

Mushfik Alimamedov, a resident of Khojaly, was wounded while fleeing the city and lay in the snow for two days:

“... We had weapons - machine guns, rifles, pistols. There was no ammunition, no food. The long blockade exhausted everyone. On February 25, in the evening, the Armenians began shelling, and at midnight the armored vehicles went on the offensive. At first, the airport was captured and burned down. They did not spare anyone - neither the elderly, nor women, nor children. Many people were burned alive in their homes, especially near the airport. The terrible smell of burnt meat still haunts me...

Most of the defenders perished on the battlefield. The survivors sought refuge in the forest in the direction of the village and in order to make their way to Agdam. Near the Armenian village of Nakhichevanik, on the road to Aghdam, they were ambushed. Many people died in an ambush near the village. The head of the Khojaly airport, the organizer of the uninterrupted operation of the airport, Alif Hajiyev, who was rushing to help the women, died there, for whose head the Armenians had long ago put a reward.”

Minesh Aliyeva, resident of Khojaly, 50 years old, gunshot wound to the arm:

“... We wandered through the forest, falling into deep snow. While crossing the road, a bullet hit me. I fell and couldn't get up. From somewhere in the forest, from behind shelters, frequent shooting was carried out. Alif grabbed me and dragged me to the side of the road. Then he lay down in the bushes and fired a burst at the militants who were shelling us. Shooting from the forest stopped for a while. Alif yelled at the women who were lying on the other side of the road, not daring to raise their heads so that they could cross quickly. He periodically fired, and each time the militants calmed down. During this time, about twenty women and children crossed the road. When Alif began to change the store, the Armenians returned fire. One of the bullets hit Alif right in the forehead. It was a terrible sight…”

Murvet Mammadov, wounded, nine years old.

“I was wounded in the leg, and brother Ahmed was wounded in the arm. He is older than me, he is already eleven years old. I saw them cut off the ears of the dead. One aunt had gold teeth pulled out of her mouth. I was afraid that they would pull my teeth too.”

Susan Jafarova, born in 1968:

"I am a nurse. The doctor and I carried the wounded man on a stretcher. Together with a group of fellow villagers, they crossed the railway bridge and the river Gar-gar. I lost my shoes in the freezing water. They hid for a long time in a snow-covered forest, surrounded on all sides by Armenian militants. One woman had a 9-month-old baby in her arms. He cried loudly. Because of him, we could all be discovered. His mother covered his mouth in fear. When they reached Aghdam, the little one hardly breathed... We went to a clearing near the Armenian village of Nakhichevanik. There were already many dead. Armenian speech was heard. I fell to the ground and pretended to be killed. They walked side by side and finished off those; who groaned and moved ... The rest of the way I crawled, because I could no longer walk ..».

Rafael Imanov, police sergeant, resident of Agdam. Helped clean up the dead.

“The hollow on the Nakhchivanik-Askeran road was full of the bodies of dead Azerbaijani women. The women's legs were tied with their own stockings. Some had their fingers cut off, some had their ears cut off. The Armenians cut off the ring and middle fingers and ears so as not to waste time removing rings and earrings. This terrible picture still dreams of me.

Yuri Romanov Russian TV reporter:

“When we finally arrive at the hospital train (the train was at the railway station in Aghdam), bloody work is going on on the platform and in the cars. One after another, cars with burning headlights drive up to the platform, and completely unusual wounded are unloaded from them: women, children and the elderly. Almost no men...

- Where did you bring it from? I ask the crazy driver.

- Khojaly ... - he waves his hand, and as soon as the body is released, the car jerks off and leaves ...

- Where is this from? - I ask the second driver, who brought the whole family in the cabin of the UAZ, colloquially called the "loaf". Wounded, covered in blood, a woman and three children. The head of the family lies on the iron floor with no signs of life. The woman shakes the fourth child, a bloody bundle, in her hands... When the overloaded engine stalls, it becomes audible how the woman quietly sings a lullaby without words:

— Ah-ah-ah-ah!

- Mother! Mommy! - a boy and two older girls pull her by the sleeve ... They are also crippled or injured, their clothes are also covered in blood. But the mother does not pay attention to them ...

— Khojaly... - says the driver, helping a wounded woman with a dead child get out of the car.

One after another, cars with the wounded approached. A whole column of assorted cars with burning headlights is formed on the road. One of the drivers, getting into the cab, remarks:

- We only have wedding columns like this during the day with headlights go ...

And the bloody "wedding" continues...

A dense lieutenant colonel of the medical service rushes along the platform along the train. He has a sallow face and the shortness of breath of a man whose heart is not right. But the need to be in many places at the same time does not give him a moment's rest. Khanlar Hajiyev, the head of the medical service of the Ministry of Defense of Azerbaijan, pauses for a minute and puts a white grain of nitroglycerin under his tongue.

— What is happening in Khojaly?

“We don’t know for sure yet, but in all likelihood, a group of refugees got caught in the crossfire ... A helicopter will fly there soon ...”

- Are there many injured?

“Wrong word.” He pulls out a notepad. “Now, at 13:00, only the doctors of our train helped 290 people. Of these, 123 with frostbite. Gunshot wounds - 67. Bullet wounds - 43, shrapnel - 24. Plus, 8 people have stab wounds ...

The slap of the blades and the hum deafen us. A helicopter materializes from low clouds.

Hajiyev shouts:

- We have already sent 66 people to Baku ... Now the next batch will fly.

- Now it won't fly...

Silently behind the noise of propellers, an old acquaintance, Zulfi Kasymov, approaches. He is in charge of the executive branch of the region. A kind of shadow government.

- We will now fly to Khojaly. Are you with us? - addresses me.

- Weird question. Of course...

- Now our operator will drive up and move off ...

— What about the wounded in Baku?

- We won't be long. Half an hour to an hour at the most...

An old acquaintance, cameraman Chingiz Mustafayev, jumps out of the "nurse". An ordinary household Panasonic, the camera is quite large, but on his shoulder it seems like a toy. He is dressed in army camouflage, has a machine gun on his shoulder, and a Makarov pistol in a holster on his waist belt.

We jump into a helicopter, Kasymov and two policemen climb up behind us. All are armed. Such a strange composition of the "delegation", and even armed, I do not really like, and I tend to Chingiz's ear.

Why are we flying there?

- For shooting. The order came from the very "top" ... - he points to the ceiling of the helicopter cabin with his fingers.

Do you think we'll be allowed to film? Who is in control there?

- Armenians, of course... I think we can agree.

I shrug. At least our flight looks like a gamble. Without agreements, without preparation, we fly to where thousands of people were shot several hours ago.

And how will the killers themselves react to the appearance of a helicopter with journalists? An adventure of the purest water. The more I think about the situation, the less I like it. Well, okay, Genghis is generally a "reckless" guy. I was with him many times on the set, marveling at how he completely fearlessly shot where not only to shoot - it was impossible to stick his nose out.

Kasymov clearly wants to curry favor with the president, and the order for the flight most likely came from Mutalipov or his inner circle. Policemen and pilots are forced people. They were ordered - they flew ... But why did the devil bring me here? What do I need the most?

As I execute and scold myself, the tone of the engine changes. Looks like they've arrived...

I look out the round window and literally recoil from the unbelievably terrible picture. On the yellow grass of the foothills, where gray cakes of snow, the remnants of winter snowdrifts, are still melting in the shade, dead people lie. This whole vast area, up to the near horizon, is littered with the corpses of women, old men, old women, boys and girls of all ages, from infants to teenagers...

The eye pulls out two figures from the mess of bodies - a grandmother and a little girl. The grandmother, with her gray head uncovered, lies face down next to a tiny girl in a blue hooded jacket. For some reason, their legs are tied with barbed wire, and my grandmother's hands are also tied. Both are shot in the head. With the last gesture, a little girl, about four years old, stretches out her hands to the murdered grandmother. Stunned, I don't even immediately remember the camera...

But the shock wears off, and I start shooting from the window for now. The helicopter hovers over the field, the pilots choose a place so that the wheel does not disturb any of the fallen ...

Suddenly, the rotorcraft, without landing, somehow bounces in the air and falls to the right, into some crazy turn down, parallel to the slope. Before my eyes in the window, very close by, grass, stones and corpses, corpses, corpses rush by ...

- What happened? I take my eyes off the viewfinder.

“They are shelling…” Genghis says laconically, without looking up from the camera. It's good they're far away.

- Who is it?

- Who knows? Armenians, I guess...

In the distance, almost at the limit of visibility, there are dark figures of people dressed in army camouflage, who, as if from hoses, are spraying our helicopter with automatic bursts ... Red dotted lines stretch from them to the helicopter. One of the militiamen accompanying us screams and turns pale. The bullet, breaking through the skin of the helicopter, hits him in the thigh.

The pilots, without lifting a heavy machine over the hills of the foothills, keep it literally a meter from the ground. How do they manage to react to the slightest bumps at a speed of almost 200 kilometers per hour earth's surface? The helicopter rushes like a car on the highway. Rare bushes, heaps of stones flicker on the sides ... After a few moments of such a crazy flight, which seemed to us like hours, the helicopter soars into the expanse of the evening sky and almost immediately disappears into low clouds.

We are enveloped in a gray damp fog. On the transparent plastic of the windows, the smallest drops are collected, which, quickly becoming larger, flow down onto the skin.

The skill of the pilots takes us out of the firing zone ...

I look at Genghis. By the weathered, stopped face strong man tears run. Catching a glance, he catches himself and runs his hand over his eyes with force ...

- Why? What's the kid for? he mutters... And the tears come out of his eyes again.

I look at my cell counter. It shows that my entire shoot lasted 37 seconds... 37 seconds of a nightmare.

Literally after 20 minutes of flight, we return to the starting point at the hospital train. The landing helicopter is in the ring of people who look at us as if they were from the next world. As if in disbelief, people touch us.

- But we have already buried you ... - says Gadzhiev. - Well, praise be to Allah, safe!

“Not everyone is safe,” Kasymov responds. - Send orderlies, a policeman was wounded ...

His face is pale, his hands tremble when he tries to light a cigarette and can not cope with the lighter. Chingiz, his face darkened, pushes the ring of people apart, gets into the car and leaves for Agdam.

I have my own worries, 37 seconds of footage burn my hands. I step out of the circle of people and raise the camera.

In the viewfinder - the road along which the car with the wounded rushes. Here the wounded are unloaded onto stretchers, directly from the platform through the open windows of the cars they are brought into the operational car. A six-year-old girl with a bandaged head. The bandage is made in such a way that it completely covers both eyes.

Without turning off the camera, I lean towards her:

- What's wrong with you, honey?

"My eyes are burning... My eyes are burning... Uncle!" My eyes are on fire!!!

The doctor touches me on the shoulder.

- She's blind. Her eyes were burned out with cigarette butts... When they brought her to us, cigarette butts were sticking out of her eyes...”

Victoria Ivleva, Russian journalist:

“I was able to visit the city of Khojaly after the assault and take terrible pictures, which depict children, women who died during the capture of Khojaly. The photographs show that Khojaly residents were shot from close range to defeat and the city was subjected to severe rocket and artillery fire.

Leonid Kravets, helicopter pilot

“On the morning of February 26, 1992, when we were returning from somewhere near Khankendi, the co-pilot shouted to me: “Look how many rags are scattered below!”. I looked down and noticed that the entire field was multi-colored. We went downhill and suddenly saw that they were corpses. There were no less than 300-400 people killed, maybe even more. The militants walked across the field and finished off the wounded. When they saw us, they opened fire on the helicopter. But we managed to get away.

The same evening, a representative of the President of Azerbaijan flew in and asked us to take him and the press to the site of the massacre of civilians. The command gave the go-ahead, and we flew to Agdam, where the film crew of Chingiz Mustafayev and several other foreign correspondents were taken on board. Several policemen from Khojaly were also taken on board.

We could not immediately land on that field, they immediately began to fire at us. Although a red cross was painted on the helicopter. I said that I would drop everyone on the field, and I would rise higher myself, because if I sat down, they would immediately shoot me down with a grenade launcher. We agreed that I would circle over the territory for 5-7 minutes and sit down again to pick up those who arrived with me.

I climbed to a certain height and suddenly noticed that several cars were rushing in our direction from Khojaly. I immediately sat down on the field and began to rush to fly away quickly.

Chingiz Mustafayev and the people who arrived with him managed to load several corpses of children into the helicopter. With us was one police captain, whom we took on board in Aghdam, he found the corpse of his three or four-year-old child in the field.

The corpse of the child was terribly disfigured, the whole clip was inserted into it. The captain handed the corpse of the child on board, and he himself had no strength to rise. With difficulty, we managed to drag him into the already taking off helicopter. While we were flying to Aghdam, this man was clutching the corpse of a child to his chest and crying. When we flew up to the city, it became clear that the heartbroken father had lost his mind. He couldn't even get off the helicopter in Aghdam."

Former Ukrainian pilot Leonid Kravets, by the way, visited Baku to take part in the premiere of the film "The Pilot Who Seen Hell", which was filmed with the support of the vice-president of the Heydar Aliyev Foundation Leyla Aliyeva. The film was prepared within the framework of the international campaign "Justice for Khojaly!". The author of the idea and the director of the film is the head of the United Diaspora of Azerbaijanis in Ukraine, Hikmet Javadov, and the director is Elmar Melikov (author's note).

V. Belykh Correspondent of the Izvestia newspaper

“From time to time, the bodies of their victims exchanged for living hostages are brought to Aghdam. But even in a nightmare, this will not be seen: gouged out eyes, cut off ears, scalped, severed heads. Bundles of several corpses, which were dragged along the ground for a long time on ropes behind an armored personnel carrier. There is no limit to bullying."

The tragedy of Khojaly is one of the most cruel pages in the history of Azerbaijan. This crime must not go unpunished.

A few years after the genocide perpetrated by the Armenian military, in an interview with the British journalist Tom de Waal, who at that time called himself the “NKR Minister of Defense”, now President of Armenia Serzh Sargsyan boasted:

“Before Khojaly, the Azerbaijanis thought that they could joke with us, they thought that the Armenians were not capable of raising a hand against the civilian population. We managed to break this stereotype. That's what happened."

​

“The Khojaly genocide, directed in general against the Azerbaijani people, with its unthinkable cruelty and inhuman methods of reprisal, is an act of atrocity in the history of mankind. This genocide, at the same time, is a historical crime against all mankind,” said Heydar Aliyev.

The massacre in Khojaly, the cruelty with which people were tortured and killed, horrified Russian, British, French, German, American journalists and publicists.

The genocide against the civilian population confirms the fact of Armenia's violation of the protocols of the Geneva Convention and contradicts the international conventions adopted in the world.

Today, people who are direct participants in this atrocity occupy high positions in Armenia. Seyran Ohanyan, Serzh Sargsyan, Robert Kocharyan and many others must answer for their crimes before an international court. The Khojadi genocide should be given a political and legal assessment by international organizations and parliaments of the countries of the world.

The Azerbaijani people remember and mourn the innocently killed, inhumanly tortured inhabitants of the city of Khojaly. We will never forget you.

Leyla Leysan

Photo: Russian journalist Victoria Ivleva, French photographer Frederic Lengein, Azertaj agency photojournalist Ilgar Jafarov.

Introduction

Khojaly massacre (Azerbaijani Xocalı qırğını) is a massacre of the inhabitants of the Azerbaijani city of Khojaly by Armenian armed forces, which in a number of sources is characterized as the largest and most brutal bloodshed during the Karabakh war. On the night of February 25-26, 1992, Armenian armed formations, with the participation of some servicemen of the 366th regiment of the CIS Joint Forces stationed in Stepanakert (assumed to have acted without an order from the command), occupied the city of Khojaly. Hundreds of civilians were killed during and after the assault.

1. Background

The offensive of the Armenian armed formations on the city of Khojaly inhabited by Azerbaijanis was predetermined by the strategic location of the city. The settlement is located 10 km southeast of Stepanakert, on a series of Karabakh mountains. Agdam-Shusha, Askeran-Stepanakert roads pass through Khojaly, and the airport is located here - the only one in Nagorno-Karabakh capable of receiving large aircraft.

Since 1988, Khojaly has repeatedly become the epicenter of conflicts between local and republican authorities. The Armenian side opposed the fact that the Azerbaijani authorities carried out intensive construction there and accommodated refugees - Azerbaijanis and Meskhetian Turks, considering this purposeful action to change the demographic situation in the region. The population of the settlement, which was 2135 people in 1988, increased to 6300 people by 1991, including due to Azerbaijani refugees from Stepanakert and some other settlements of Nagorno-Karabakh. 54 families of Meskhetian Turks who fled from the pogroms from Ferghana (Uzbek SSR) also settled in the city. In 1990, Khojaly received the status of a city. The OMON unit of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Azerbaijan was located here, which since 1990 controlled the airport. There are numerous testimonies of violence and bullying by OMON officers against passengers and pilots of Armenian nationality while the airport was still functioning. To provide employment for the sharply increased population in the city, the construction of branches of the largest industrial enterprises of Azerbaijan, residential buildings and other household facilities was launched.

Since the autumn of 1991, Khojaly was practically blocked by the Armenian armed formations, and after the withdrawal of the internal troops of the USSR from Nagorno-Karabakh, a complete blockade was established. Since January 1992 there has been no electricity supply to Khojaly . Part of the inhabitants left the besieged city, but the complete evacuation of the civilian population, despite the persistent requests of the head of the Azerbaijani executive power of Khojaly E. Mammadov, was not organized.

There was no telephone connection, electricity, heating, running water in Khojaly. Since October 1991, the only means of communication with outside world became helicopters. By February 13, 1992, when the last helicopter flight was made to Khojaly, less than 300 residents were evacuated from there.

Alif Hajiyev was the head of the city's defense. Khojaly lasted several months under his leadership .

The Russian human rights center Memorial, which conducted its own investigation into the circumstances of the tragedy, claims that by the beginning of the assault there were from 2 to 4 thousand inhabitants in the city, including several hundred defenders of the city: Army of Azerbaijan. According to information received from both sides, there were 3 units of armored vehicles in the city, as well as the Alazan installation. According to the Armenian side, there were also 2 Grad multiple rocket launchers in Khojaly.”

During the winter months of 1991-92. Khojaly was under constant artillery fire. Most of the attacks were carried out at night. The international human rights organization Human Rights Watch has collected testimonies from refugees showing that some shelling was indiscriminate or directed directly at civilian targets, resulting in civilian casualties.

2. Assault on Khojaly

At about 11 pm on February 25, 1992, artillery shelling of Khojaly began, and from 1 am to 4 am the next day, infantry detachments entered the city, crushing the last center of resistance of the defenders of Khojaly by 7 am. Journalist Tom de Waal describes the start of the assault:

The assault began on the night of February 25-26. This day was probably chosen to commemorate the Armenian pogroms in Sumgayit four years earlier. Armored vehicles of the 366th regiment of the Soviet Army provided combat support to the Armenians. They surrounded Khojaly from three sides, after which the Armenian soldiers entered the city and crushed the resistance of the defenders.

Markar and Seta Melkonyan, brother and wife of Monte Melkonyan, who from the beginning of February 1992 was one of the leaders of the Armenian armed groups in Karabakh (Martuni region), in his book "My Brother's Road: An American's Fateful Journey to Armenia" (2005) ) also indicate that the attack on Khojaly was undertaken on the anniversary of the events in Sumgayit and could be regarded as a kind of act of retribution.

Part of the population soon after the start of the assault began to leave Khojaly, trying to go towards Agdam. As stated in the report of the human rights organization "Memorial", people left in two directions:

from the eastern outskirts of the city to the northeast along the riverbed, leaving Askeran on the left (it was this path, as Armenian officials pointed out, that was left as a "free corridor");

from the northern outskirts of the city to the northeast, leaving Askeran on the right (apparently, a smaller part of the refugees left along this path).

According to the human rights organization Memorial, “as a result of the shelling of the city, an unspecified number of civilians died in the territory of Khojaly during the assault. Armenian side practically refused to provide information on the number of people who died in this way.”

According to Memorial, “a large stream of residents rushed out of the city along the riverbed (path 1). In some groups of refugees there were armed people from the garrison of the city. These refugees, walking along the “free corridor”, in the territory adjacent to the Aghdam region of Azerbaijan, were fired upon, as a result of which many people died. The surviving refugees dispersed. The fugitives stumbled upon the Armenian outposts and were subjected to shelling. Some of the refugees still managed to get to Agdam; part, mostly women and children (it is impossible to establish the exact number), froze during wanderings in the mountains; part, according to the testimony of those who went to Agdam, was captured near the villages of Pirjamal and Nakhichevanik. There are testimonies of already exchanged residents of Khojaly that a certain number of prisoners were shot.

According to Human Rights Watch, which also conducted its own investigation into the tragedy, fire was opened on the retreating riot police and fleeing residents by Armenians and servicemen of the 366th CIS regiment (apparently acting without orders from their commanders) in a field near the village of Nakhichevanik, which was then under the control of the Armenians. According to Human Rights Watch, “a crowd of residents, accompanied by a couple of dozen retreating defenders, fled the city after it passed to the Armenian armed forces. When they approached the border with Azerbaijan, they ran into an Armenian armed post and were brutally shot.” .

Groups of refugees who went by another road, in relation to which Askeran was on the right, were also subjected to shelling.

3. Investigation

On February 28, a group of journalists on two helicopters managed to get to the place where the Azerbaijanis were killed. Despite the cover of the second helicopter, due to heavy shelling by Armenian militants, they were able to take out only four corpses. Russian TV reporter Yuri Romanov, who, together with Azerbaijani journalist Chingiz Mustafayev, was the first to visit the site of the tragedy, recalled the moment of arrival at the place of death of civilians as follows:

I look out the round window (helicopter) and literally recoil from the incredibly scary picture. On the yellow grass of the foothills, where gray cakes of snow, the remnants of winter snowdrifts, still melt in the shade, dead people lie. All this vast area to the near horizon is littered with the corpses of women, old men, old women, boys and girls of all ages, from an infant to a teenager ... The eye pulls out two figures from the mess of bodies - a grandmother and a little girl. The grandmother, with her gray head uncovered, lies face down next to a tiny girl in a blue hooded jacket. For some reason, their legs are tied with barbed wire, and my grandmother's hands are also tied. Both are shot in the head. With the last gesture, a little girl, about four years old, stretches out her hands to the murdered grandmother. Stunned, I don't even immediately remember the camera...

On the same day, Thomas Goltz reported to the Washington Post from Agdam:

Refugees say that hundreds died during the Armenian attack... Of the seven corpses we saw here today, two were children's and three were women's, one of the bodies had a wound in the chest, apparently from close range. Many of the 120 refugees being treated at the Aghdam hospital have multiple stab wounds.

Anatole Lieven of The Times of London wrote:

Two groups, apparently two families, were killed together - the children were engulfed in the arms of the women. Some of them, including a little girl, had monstrous head wounds: in fact, only the face remained. The survivors said that the Armenians shot them at close range, already lying on the ground.

According to The New York Times,

Near Aghdam, on the border of Nagorno-Karabakh, according to Reuters photographer Frederika Langen, she saw two trucks filled with the corpses of Azerbaijanis. “I counted 35 in the first truck and it looks like it was the same in the second one,” she said. “Some had their heads cut off, many were burned. All of them were men, but only a few were in protective uniforms.

According to the BBC Morning News,

The reporter said that he, the videographer and other Western journalists saw over 100 corpses of men, women and children slaughtered by Armenians. They were shot in the head from a distance of one meter. The photo also shows almost ten corpses (mostly women and children) shot in the head.

The correspondent of the Izvestia newspaper V. Belykh reported in his report:

“From time to time, the bodies of their victims exchanged for living hostages are brought to Aghdam. But even in a nightmare, this will not be seen: gouged out eyes, cut off ears, scalped, severed heads. Bundles of several corpses, which were dragged along the ground for a long time on ropes behind an armored personnel carrier. There is no limit to bullying."

He cites the testimony of a Russian Air Force helicopter pilot, Major Leonid Kravets:

“On February 26, I took the wounded out of Stepanakert and returned back through the Askeran Gate. Some bright spots on the ground caught my eye. He went down, and then my flight mechanic shouted: “Look, there are women and children.” Yes, I myself have already seen about two hundred dead, scattered along the slope, among whom wandered people with weapons. Then we flew to pick up the corpses. We had a local police captain with us. He saw his four-year-old son there with a crushed skull and was moved by reason. Another child, whom we managed to pick up before they started firing at us, had his head cut off. The mutilated bodies of women, children and old people I saw everywhere.

According to the American magazine Newsweek, many were killed at close range while trying to escape, and some had their faces disfigured.

According to Time magazine columnist Jill Smalle,

The simple explanation given by the attacking Armenians, who insist that innocent people were not killed on purpose, is not at all believable.

Russian cameraman Yuri Romanov describes a six-year-old Khojaly girl whose eyes were burned out with cigarette butts.

Helen Womack, a journalist for the British newspaper The Independent, reported from the scene:

When I arrived in Agdam on Tuesday evening, I saw 75 fresh graves in one of the cemeteries and four mutilated corpses in the mosque. In the field hospital set up in wagons at the railway station, I also saw women and children with bullet wounds.

Journalist Francis Clynes, while in Aghdam, cited the testimony of a surviving boy in The New York Times:

“They came to our house and told us to run or burn to death,” said Ahmed Mammadov, an 11-year-old refugee from Khojaly who was wounded in the arm. “They broke everything around and threw a grenade that wounded my older brother and mother. I saw how Natavan Usubova died with her mother from another grenade,” he said, referring to a 4-year-old girl.

As Memorial reports in its report,

“Official representatives of the NKR and members of the Armenian armed groups explained the death of civilians in the “free corridor” zone by the fact that armed people left with the refugees, who fired at the Armenian outposts, causing return fire, as well as an attempt to break through from the side of the main Azerbaijani forces. According to the members of the Armenian armed detachments, the Azerbaijani formations attempted an armed breakthrough in the direction of the “free corridor” from Agdam. At the moment when the Armenian outposts were repulsing the attack, the first groups of refugees from Khojaly approached them in the rear. Armed people among the refugees opened fire on the Armenian outposts. During the battle, one post was destroyed (2 people were killed, 10 people were injured), but the fighters of another post, the existence of which the Azerbaijanis did not suspect, opened fire at close range on people coming from Khojaly. According to the testimonies of refugees from Khojaly (including those published in the press), armed people walking in the stream of refugees engaged in skirmishes with the Armenian outposts, but each time the shooting was started by the Armenian side first.”

“According to the NKR officials, a “free corridor” was left for the civilian population to leave Khojaly, which began at the eastern outskirts of the city, ran along the riverbed and went to the northeast, leading towards Aghdam and leaving Askeran on the left. The width of the corridor was 100-200, and in some places up to 300 m. The members of the Armenian armed formations promised not to fire at civilians and members of military formations who came out without weapons and were within this “corridor”.

According to the officials of the NKR and the participants in the assault, the population of Khojaly at the beginning of the assault was informed of the existence of such a "corridor" with the help of loudspeakers mounted on armored personnel carriers. However, the persons who reported this information did not rule out that most of the population of Khojaly could not hear the message about the "free corridor" because of the shooting and the low power of the loudspeakers.

NKR officials also reported that a few days before the assault, helicopters dropped leaflets over Khojaly calling on the people of Khojaly to use the “free corridor”. However, not a single copy of such a leaflet was provided to the observers of "Memorial" in support of this. In Khojaly, the observers of "Memorial" also did not find any traces of such leaflets. Refugees from Khojaly who were interviewed reported that they had never heard of such leaflets.

In Aghdam and Baku, "Memorial" observers interviewed 60 people who fled from Khojaly during the storming of the city. Only one of those interviewed said that he knew about the existence of a “free corridor” (he was informed about this by a “military” from the Khojaly garrison). Even those detained residents of Khojaly who were interviewed by the “Memorial” observers in the presence of deputy R. Hayrikyan in the Stepanakert temporary detention center did not hear anything about the “free corridor”.

A few days before the assault, representatives of the Armenian side repeatedly, using radio communications, informed the authorities of Khojaly about the upcoming assault and urged them to immediately completely withdraw the population from the city. The fact that this information was received by the Azerbaijani side and transmitted to Baku is confirmed in the publications of the Baku newspapers (“Baku worker”).”

The existence of the “corridor” is also indicated by the words of the Khojaly chief executive Elman Mammadov, quoted in the newspaper “Russian Thought” dated April 3, 1992: “We knew that this corridor was intended for the exit of the civilian population ...”

The declared provision of a "free corridor" for the population to leave Khojaly can be regarded either as deliberate actions of the NKR officials to "cleanse" the city from its inhabitants, or as a recognition by the NKR authorities that they are unable to ensure the observance of the rights of the civilian population in the territory under their control. person, regardless of his belonging to a particular nationality.

Information about the existence of a "free corridor" was not brought to the attention of the majority of the inhabitants of Khojaly.

For 200 years, the Azerbaijani people have been constantly subjected to ethnic cleansing and a policy of genocide by Armenian chauvinists. Azerbaijanis were expelled from their historical lands, became refugees and forced migrants, and all this was accompanied by massacres committed by Armenians. The expulsion of Azerbaijanis from their historical and ethnic lands continued during the Soviet era. In 1948-1953, 150,000 Azerbaijanis were deported from Armenia and settled in the Kura-Araz lowland. In the second half of the 80s of the 20th century, Armenians, taking advantage of the situation that had developed to implement the ideas of "Great Armenia", again put forward territorial claims in relation to the Nagorno-Karabakh region of Azerbaijan. And in 1988, 250,000 Azerbaijanis were expelled from this territory. These Azerbaijani refugees were forced to settle in the surrounding areas. Institute of History named after A. Bkikhanov ANAS. Khojaly genocide - a tragedy of the 20th century [Electronic resource]. - http: //www.azerbaijan. az/portal/Karabakh/Genocide/genocide_r.html One of the points of their settlement was Khojaly, which at that time was a settlement with a population of 2135 people. The Armenian side opposed the fact that the Azerbaijani authorities carried out intensive construction there and accommodated refugees - Azerbaijanis and Meskhetian Turks, considering this purposeful action to change the demographic situation in the region. By 1991, the population of the settlement increased to 6300 people, including due to Azerbaijani refugees from Agdam (Stepanakert) and some other settlements of Nagorno-Karabakh. To provide employment for the sharply increased population in the city, the construction of branches of the largest industrial enterprises of Azerbaijan, residential buildings and other household facilities was launched. In 1990, Khojaly received the status of a city. In Khojaly, there was a unit of the OMON of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Azerbaijan, which since 1990 controlled the airport. Since the autumn of 1991, Khojaly was practically blocked by the Armenian armed formations, and after the withdrawal of the internal troops of the USSR from Nagorno-Karabakh (October 1991), a complete blockade was established. There was no electricity, telephone, heating, running water in the city. Part of the inhabitants left the besieged city, but part of the population refused to leave the city, despite the persistent requests of the head of the Azerbaijani executive power of Khojaly, Elman Mammadov. On October 30, 1991, automobile communications were interrupted, and from October 1991, helicopters became the only means of communication with the outside world. Last flight was carried out on January 28, 1992, when less than 300 residents were taken out of the city. Report of the human rights center "Memorial" on the mass violations of human rights associated with the occupation of the settlement of Khojaly on the night of February 25-26, 1992 by armed groups [Electronic resource]. - http: //www.memo.ru/hr/hotpoints/karabah/Hojaly/index. htm Air communication was interrupted due to the fact that a civilian helicopter was shot down over the city of Shusha, as a result of which 41 people died tragically. During the winter months of 1991-1992, Khojaly was under constant artillery fire. Most of the attacks were carried out at night.

Since the beginning of 1992, the Armenian army has occupied one after another the Azerbaijani settlements in the mountainous part of Karabakh. During the armed attack on the village of Garadaghly, Khojavend region, which lasted from February 13 to 17, 118 people (children, women, old people) were taken prisoner, 33 people were shot by Armenians, at the same time, the dead and wounded were buried together in a household pit. those taken prisoner were mercilessly killed, and 50 people were released from captivity with great difficulty. 18 people from among those released subsequently died from their incurable wounds. The monstrous treatment of those held captive, vandalism against them, cutting off people's heads, burying them alive, pulling out teeth, keeping them without bread and water was the most serious crime against humanity. Gasanov, A.Sh. Khojaly genocide: causes, consequences and recognition in the international arena [Electronic resource]. - http: //www.1news. az/politics/20170226115442395.html It should be taken into account that since 1992 Azerbaijan and Armenia have been in a state of war, and therefore one should rely on Geneva convention about protection civil population in time wars dated August 12, 1949, regarding the actions that were committed by the Armenians against civilians. So, according to this convention, "it is forbidden and always and everywhere will be prohibited a) encroachments on life and physical integrity, in particular all types of murder, mutilation, cruel treatment, torture and torture; b) hostage-taking; c) encroachment on human dignity, in particular, insulting and degrading treatment.These points were violated in relation to the Azerbaijanis of the village of Garadaghly.

The city of Khojaly, as a strategically important territory in the Nagorno-Karabakh region of Azerbaijan, interfered with the aggressive plans of the Armenians. The regional center of Karabakh is Stepanakert, main city Karabakh and the capital of Armenians, was extremely vulnerable. Located on an open gentle slope of a mountain, it was surrounded on all sides by Azerbaijani settlements. 25 km to the east was Agdam and the flat part of Azerbaijan, 10 km to the north was the city of Khojaly populated by Azerbaijanis. Directly above Stepanakert, on the south side, on the mountain is the city of Shusha. The only connection with the outside world was provided by helicopters flying to Armenia over the mountains. De Waal, T. "Caucasian Knot" [Electronic resource]. - http: //www.kavkaz-uzel. eu/articles/201859/ One of the highlights of the city was that it had the only Nagorno-Karabakh the airport. Therefore, the main goal of the Armenian armed forces was to control the Askeran-Khankendi road passing through Khojaly and to capture the airport located in the city. In addition, in the course of the Khojaly genocide, committed with particular cruelty, the Armenians set a goal to wipe out this ancient settlement of Azerbaijan from the face of the earth.

On the night of February 25-26, 1992, during the Armenian-Azerbaijani, Nagorno-Karabakh armed conflict, one of the greatest tragedies in the history of the Azerbaijani Turks took place - the Khojaly massacre. At 23:00 that night Armenians attacked Khojaly from 3 directions. This attack involved armed groups subordinate to the Armed Forces of the Armenian Republic, mercenary soldiers, Armenian formations of Nagorno-Karabakh, calling themselves the Artsakh People's Army, and military personnel of the 366th Russian motorized rifle regiment, which, as it turned out later, consisted mainly of Armenian officers and ensigns. In this assault, they showed the greatest activity military equipment The 366th regiment, occupying a forward position from Khankendi, standing behind them Russian-Armenian armed detachments, and in the direction from Askeran - more than 1000 armed militants. At first, the foot forces, advancing with the help of the tanks of the 366th regiment towards the city, destroyed the military headquarters and firing positions located in the city with artillery fire. The defenders of the city bravely fought the enemy until morning. Some of them put explosive devices on themselves and rushed at enemy equipment. The last point of resistance was destroyed at 7 am. During the shelling in the city of Khojaly, fighting bravely, hundreds of people died. The civilian population, moving from different directions towards Aghdam, was fired upon by the Armenian armed forces, taken hostage and subjected to monstrous torture. Armenian soldiers, hiding on the roads where civilians could run, killed everyone in a row. Mamedov, S.S. Khojaly genocide [Text]. / S.S. Mammadov. - Baku: Mutarjim, 2012. - 16s.

According to almost all 22 Azerbaijanis, witnesses of the Khojaly events, interviewed " Helsinki Watch", in the winter of 1991-1992, the village was shelled almost daily. According to Khasan Allahyarov, a construction worker, the city was constantly under fire, but usually it was machine guns, and on that day, an infantry fighting vehicle [infantry fighting vehicles] and tanks appeared before his eyes, firing from all directions. When he came out, he saw that bombs were falling everywhere. Residents fled in separate groups, amidst chaos and panic, most of them did not take personal belongings or warm clothes. As a result, hundreds of people suffered from severe frostbite, some died. Most of the inhabitants of Khojaly moved along the road, through the mountains and shortly before dawn came to an open field near the village of Nakhchivanli, which at that time was under the control of Armenians.It was here that the most intense shelling took place. Among the victims of this shelling were women and children was 9. According to Nazili Khametova, who received a gunshot wound in her left leg, those who stood up wounded him.51-year-old Baloglan Allahyarov stories It is believed that when they reached the field, they were fired upon from the side of the forest. Then they were forced to flee towards the gorge, where his wife and daughter-in-law were shot dead. Then the Armenians took off their rings. The circumstances of the attack on the people who fled from Khojaly towards the village of Nakhchivanly testify that the Armenian armed forces and the 366th CIS Regiment deliberately ignored this usual, legally mandated, attack restriction. While witnesses and victims gave varying accounts of the exact time the shelling began near Nakhichevanik, they all reported that it was bright enough to see clearly and thus the attackers could distinguish unarmed civilians from armed and/or using people's weapons. Also, evidence suggests that the attackers shot at all the fleeing people indiscriminately. Under such circumstances, the killing of fleeing military personnel cannot justify the predictably higher number of civilian casualties. Bloodshed in the Caucasus: Escalation of the armed conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh (

On February 25-26, 1992, Armenian bandits committed genocide against the 7,000th population of the city of Khojaly.

We bring to your attention a short chronology, which contains materials about those who are guilty of the Khojaly genocide, testimonies of the inhabitants of the city, as well as the historical attachment of this tragedy to a number of other dates.

How it was…

During the assault on Khojaly, the eastern side of the city was deliberately left open by the Armenians - it was an exit in the direction of the city of Aghdam. Half-dressed, distraught with fear, the Khojaly residents in pitch darkness, bumping into a barrage of fire everywhere, intuitively fled in an easterly direction, which seemed deceptively calm.

In the 12-degree February frost, the Khojaly people wade across the Gargar-chay River, where, according to the Khojaly people, there was an Armenian reconnaissance group on the opposite bank, which reported on the radio operational report and information about the movements of the fleeing residents of the city.

Armenians prepared at least three ambushes for the Khojaly residents in the so-called "humanitarian corridor". The first group of Khojaly residents was shot and taken prisoner on the opposite bank of the Gargar-chai river. The Armenians here met the Khojaly residents, who were getting out of the icy water, with dense machine-gun fire.

Further, near the Armenian village of Kyatuk, which lies on the way to Aghdam, the Khojaly people again fell into an Armenian ambush, where they suffered heavy losses and many were captured. And those who got out of this ambush alive fled towards the village of Nakhichevanik, about which, a few hours before the start of the assault, the Armenians themselves spread a rumor over the radio that the village had been liberated by the Azerbaijani Armed Forces.

That is why the people of Khojaly chose this direction, thinking that finally salvation awaits them in Nakhchivanik. When the surviving groups of Khojaly residents reached the Askeran highway, dawn came, and the forest belt in which they hid ended. Now, with the sunrise, the Khojaly people were on the plain, visible as if in the palm of their hand.

Here, on the outskirts of Nakhichevanik, another Armenian ambush awaited them, where the main massacre took place and most of the residents of the city who survived after the assault died. The Armenians shot women, children, old people who found themselves on the flat terrain and became an easy target. There was also an ambush near the village of Gulably and then on the way to the village of Shelli, where many Khodjaly residents also died.

Historical thread between the Sumgayit events and the Khojaly massacre

After the Khojaly pogrom, it was said in Yerevan that by attacking this Azerbaijani city, the Armenians intended to “mark” the anniversary of the 1988 Sumgayit events. That is why the date was chosen - February 25th. On this day, a massive Armenian attack on the city began from 10-11 directions, accompanied by heavy rocket fire.

REFERENCE: The infamous "Sumgayit events" of February 1988 were planned by the Armenians themselves in order to justify the territorial claims to Nagorno-Karabakh.

The question arises, what was the goal pursued by the Armenians, outlining the city of Khojaly for this bloody action?

If, on the one hand, the goal was to remove from its path the point in Nagorno-Karabakh inhabited by Azerbaijanis, which is an obstacle of strategic importance, then, on the other hand, it was to completely wipe Khojaly off the face of the earth.

Because Khojaly was like that locality, which reflected the historical and cultural traditions of Azerbaijan from ancient times to the modern era. This particular culture entered history as the Khojaly-Gedabey culture. Khojaly cromlechs, dolmens, cyclops, mounds and other monuments, as well as various kinds of objects are examples of material culture, reflecting the dynamics of the development of human society.

The destruction of all these monuments of material culture after the occupation of this territory by the Armenians, as well as the complete destruction of the Khojaly cemetery, which was considered one of the oldest burial places in the world, with the help of technology, is not only a clear example of Armenian vandalism, but also an act of violence against global culture.

Episodes of the Khojaly genocide terrify people

A resident of Khojaly, Antiga, was burned alive by the Armenians for refusing to repeat the words “these lands belong to great Armenia” at their request. Another resident of Khojaly, Saria Talybova, said that “4 Meskhetian Turks and 3 Azerbaijanis were beheaded at the grave of an Armenian. Then 2 more Azerbaijanis had their eyes gouged out.”

“Today, Azerbaijan is taking serious steps towards the further creation of an international tribunal to investigate the events of the Khojaly tragedy. This process should be raised at the level of the international Hague Tribunal in order to achieve criminal punishment for those responsible for the Khojaly genocide. The list of these criminals includes the current President of Armenia Serzh Sargsyan, ex-President Robert Kocharyan, Armenian Defense Minister Seyran Ohanyan and other high-ranking Armenian officials,” said Rizvan Huseynov, director of the Center for Caucasian History.

According to him, it is important to consider the genocide of the Azerbaijani population of Khojaly as a great crime committed by Armenian troops. Considering these crimes as a whole, one can compose a complete picture of the tragedy that occurred and look from a broader prism at the causes and consequences of the events of the Karabakh war. In addition, such an assessment allows us to consider in more detail the methods of the world Armenians in carrying out mass ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity on the territory of Azerbaijan.

In the end, I would like to recall that as a result of the atrocities of Armenian militants in Khojaly, 613 people were killed, 487 people became crippled, 1275 civilians - old people, children, women - were captured and subjected to unthinkable humiliation and torture.