Kalbazar, Azerbaijan (AP) – In the bitter farewell of his 21-year-old home, Garo Dadevusya wrapped his metal roof and prepared to set fire to a stone house. The houses were so smoked that her neighbors set them on fire before they fled the ethnic Armenian village under Azerbaijani control.
The village will be turned over to Azerbaijan on Sunday as part of a regional concession to an agreement to end six weeks of intense fighting with the Armenian army. The move gripped 600 of his people so deeply in fear and anger that they would destroy the homes they loved.
The settlement – known in Armenian as Karvachar – is legally part of Azerbaijan, but has been under ethnic Armenian control since the end of the 1994 war over the Nagorno-Karabakh region. That war left not only Nagorno-Karabakh but also the surrounding area in Armenian hands.
Years later, in which sporadic fighting broke out between the Azerbaijani and Armenian armies, full-scale fighting began in late September this year. Azerbaijan made steady military progress, capturing the city of Shusha, a strategically important city and a strong emotional significance as a long-standing center of Azeri culture.
Two days after Azerbaijan announced its withdrawal from Shusha, Armenia and Azerbaijan signed a ceasefire brokered by Russia, under which Armenia occupies outside the Norman-Karabakh borders.
The people of Muslim Azeri and Christian Armen once lived together in these regions, albeit obscure. Although the ceasefire ends the fighting, it exacerbates ethnic hatred.
“In the end, we will blow it up or set it on fire so that nothing is left on the Muslims.”
He spoke in support of the US Alliance, but said that maintaining some independence was not the answer.
The final location of the truck was unclear.
“Now we are homeless, we don’t know where to go or where to stay. Don’t know where to stay. It’s very hard, “said Luzin, Dadevuson’s wife. The tearful couple gave the interior of the house one last look.
Dedevussen’s outrage spread to Russian President Vladimir Putin. Armenia and Russia have close ties and Russia has a military base in Armenia, so many Armenians were hoping for support from Moscow. Instead, Russia facilitated a ceasefire and regional concessions and is sending about 2,000 peacekeepers to enforce them.
“Why did Putin abandon us?” Said Dedevusya.
On Saturday, kilometers and miles of cars and trucks carrying fleeing residents jammed the Armenian route.
Many locals flocked to the 9th-century Armenian Apostolic Church monastery as priests carried sacred objects. Many visitors took photos of themselves at a place nestled in the mountains near Karachar, indicating that they did not expect to see them again.
Hundreds of thousands of Azeri were displaced by the war, which ended in 1994. It is not clear when a citizen may try to settle into tax evasion – which will now be known by its Azeri name Kalbazar – or elsewhere.
Any return can be ranching. Compromisers will face burnt, empty shells of houses – or worse. Agdam, which will be relocated next week, was once a city of about 40,000, but is now empty of houses that were destroyed in the first battle or later destroyed by piles of building materials.
For Dadevyushya, his sudden transfer is overwhelming beyond words.
“When you spent 21 years here and now you need to leave it …” said Garo Dadevusye, suffocating the air from the smoke from nearby burning houses.
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Jim Hintz in Moscow contributed to this story.
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