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Baku, Azerbaijan – The first Nagorno-Karabakh war, which resulted in a ceasefire in 1994, left more than one million Azerbaijanis homeless, including internally displaced persons and people who had been deported from Armenia.
They represented about 10 percent of the population.
Now, with renewed conflict, many look on and wonder if they will finally be able to return home.
In addition to Nagorno-Karabakh, ethnic Armenians dominate swaths of the surrounding districts.
According to international law, Nagorno-Karabakh and the districts belong to Azerbaijan and are being occupied.
New clashes between Armenia and Azerbaijan began on September 27, and as the day progresses, internally displaced persons are closely monitoring the Twitter account of Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev to see if their areas of origin are among those that the army, as the leader says, “liberates.” ”.
Since the last outbreak began, the Azerbaijani army claims to have retaken some 200 settlements from the Armenian-backed forces.
Human rights activist Samir Kazimli, 38, was a child when his life turned upside down in the 1990s.
“After the Armenian forces occupied our village, we settled in another village in Fuzuli, and then that village was also occupied,” he told Al Jazeera.
His family’s ancestral village of Ashagi Seyidahmedli in Fuzuli is among the areas that the army has taken over.
Fresh out of the conflict, as a child, he ended up staying with a family that was hosting refugees.
“I studied seven grades of school there. Then we moved to a tent camp for internally displaced people, ”said Kazimli, who says he is against the war.
“I have always wanted the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict to be resolved peacefully, as long as the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan is guaranteed. But the lands have not been returned peacefully. “
In less than two months of fighting, more than 1,000 people have died, including dozens of civilians on both sides.
Aliyev has said that Azerbaijan will release its military death toll once the crisis is over.
In 1994, Azerbaijan regained part of the native village of Kazimli, land on which a cemetery was later built.
The posts of the Armenian forces were about three kilometers from the site. However, many buried their dead there, in part to send a message that they could never be reconciled to the occupation.
Earlier this year, Kazimli became a father; she hopes her daughter Pinar can return to Ashagi Seyidahmedli soon.
“A few days after my daughter was officially registered as a resident of our town, in October, our town was liberated from the occupation.”
Samir Kazimli with his newborn baby, Pinar [Courtesy: Samir Kazimli]
Khalid Vahidoglu, 42, works for an NGO and is originally from Bashlibel, a village in Kalbajar.
He has a photo of the house that he left, which he printed from the Internet, on his desk.
“In 2014, I found photos taken by Russian tourists from the Kalbajar region on the internet. There were over 100 photographs, and as I looked at them, I saw many familiar places. They also visited our town, because among the photos I saw a photo of our house, ”he told Al Jazeera.
“Due to the suffering and memories of my childhood ruined by the Karabakh conflict, I did not have much hope for a peaceful solution.”
“The [Armenians’] the restoration of the Khojaly airport, the construction of a new highway to Kalbajar and the annual ‘Victory Day’ events in Shusha on May 8 demonstrated that Armenia would not peacefully return the occupied territories of Azerbaijan. “
Vahidoglu added that three factors led to the recent clashes: the recent statement by Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan that “Artsakh is Armenia, period”, followed by the inauguration of a “president” of the region, known to Armenians as the Republic. of Artsakh, in Shusha and the transfer of the parliament to Shusha.
“It was expected that playing with the pride of the Azerbaijani people would end in a war,” Vahidoglu said.
Shusha, known to Armenians as Shushi, is regarded by Azerbaijanis as their historical center in the Nagorno-Karabakh region, and the inward movements were seen as a provocation.
On Sunday, Azerbaijan said it had retaken Shusha, a claim that the Armenians denied.
Leyla Jahangirova, 36, was forced to leave Tug, a village in the Armenian-controlled Khojavend region, in the 1990s.
“First, we had to live on the front line,” Jahangirova told Al Jazeera. “Both of my parents were doctors and they helped the wounded at the front. We lived in various towns, districts, and cities. We almost did a tour of Azerbaijan. We change schools every year. We always wore old clothes.
“We came to Baku in 1998. We lived renting for a long time. In 2010, the state of Baku provided us with housing. “
Jahangirova, who has participated in peacebuilding projects, hoped that the conflict would be resolved without bloodshed.
“In his speeches, President Ilham Aliyev repeatedly said: ‘We have nothing to do with the Armenians of Karabakh, our fight is with the separatists and terrorists.’ This is the message of peace. In other words, we have no problem with the civilian population, the Armenian community of Karabakh… it gives hope for peace, that we, as a community, can continue to live as we did before. But I don’t know what the other party thinks about it. “
Like Jahangirova and Kazimli, journalist Aynur Ganbarova, an internally displaced person from the Aghdam region, says she is not in favor of the war.
“This war took my youth. When I think of those years, the first thing that comes to mind is my family, who took refuge in a school classroom, “said Ganbarova,” and my mother’s red hands from washing dishes in cold water. He put his hands under his armpits to keep them warm. The war and its aftermath were so difficult that he did not want future generations to experience it.
“For this reason, the recent start of the war saddened me deeply, although I really want those lands to return, to return to Agdam and Shusha.”
Since then, both of Ganbarova’s parents have died, as has the grandmother who lived with them. His sister has married and his brothers left Azerbaijan.
“If they said, ‘You’re going to Agdam tomorrow,’ there would be no one but me. The war took my family, I will no longer have that warm home. “
According to a UNHCR report from October 2009, women, children and the elderly were particularly affected by the leak.
“Prolonged displacement has not only negatively impacted their psychological and social well-being, but has often led to isolation and marginalization due to the increased difficulties they face in fully integrating into economic life and becoming self-sufficient,” the report says.
Aybaniz Ismayilova, 44, is a leading figure in an Azerbaijani-led community group in Nagorno-Karabakh. Originally from the Zangilan region, she was 15 when she had to flee.
His family had just bought a house in Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan, and planned to move.
“It had four rooms. My brother, my parents and I had separate rooms. We wanted to build our rooms to our liking, but [the crisis] turned everything upside down. All of our relatives from the region gathered around us.
“We all wanted to go home in peace, we didn’t want war. Twenty-seven years have been very difficult. We lost my grandmother, my uncles and aunts all these years. They couldn’t see their dreams come true. “
Aybeniz studied abroad and participated in international events focused on Karabakh.
Armenian supporters “told me to go find Karabakh if we wanted it so badly, but I said we don’t want a war,” he said. “We have seen many difficulties, infant deaths, we do not wish this on any nation.”
Aybaniz’s hometown, the Minjivan settlement in Zangilan, has been retaken as a result of a counter-offensive operation by the Azerbaijani army.
Sevinj Gurbanova’s feelings are also torn. The 57-year-old village of Garakishiler in Qubadli district has also been “liberated”.
“But these years have been taken from us,” he said of the 27 years he has spent homeless. “First we settled in Sumgayit, in one of the sanatoriums. We didn’t even have a glass to drink water. Then we moved to Baku with the help of relatives. Although we are happy with the freedom of our region, it is impossible to forget the difficult days.
“While one eye cries, the other laughs. We hoped that one day the problem would be resolved peacefully and there would be no bloodshed. “
Some areas of the Qubadli district are among which the Azerbaijani army claims to have taken control in recent clashes. [Seymur Kazimov/Al Jazeera]
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