Death toll rises in Nagorno-Karabakh battles and no calm in sight



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Fearing an open war between Azerbaijan and Armenia (Getty)

Since Sunday, 68 people have been killed in violent clashes between Armenian separatists and the Azerbaijani army in Nagorno Karabakh, and it is feared that these clashes will lead to open warfare between Yerevan and Baku.

All regional and international powers, Russia, France, the United States, France, Iran and the European Union, except Turkey, an ally of Baku, called for an immediate ceasefire.

In this separatist region that has the support of Yerevan, the Defense Ministry acknowledged that 59 militants have been killed since Sunday morning and the start of clashes in the Azerbaijani separatist region of Karabakh, inhabited by an Armenian majority.

And he claimed that “28 soldiers died during the fighting” on Monday, bringing the death toll in this camp to 59.

Armenian separatists seized Karabakh from Baku in a war in the 1990s that killed 30,000 people.

Azerbaijan did not announce military losses. The losses can be much higher, as each side claims they caused hundreds of casualties on the other side and both sides posted pictures of the battles.

Baku confirmed that it had killed 550 hostile militants, while Yerevan reported that it had killed more than 200 people.

Karabakh’s “Defense Ministry” also claimed that it had regained the sites it lost the day before, while Azerbaijan, the Caucasian country that has spent generously on weaponry in recent years thanks to oil wealth, confirmed that it had gained control. of more lands, using missiles, artillery and aviation.

Azerbaijani Major General Mays Barkhudarov declared that his forces “are ready to fight to the last drop of blood to eliminate the enemy.”

Armenia and Azerbaijan exchange accusations of sparking the bloody clashes, as Azerbaijan says it launched a “counter-operation” in response to Armenian “aggression”, using artillery and armored bombing and air strikes in the separatist region.

On Sunday, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan accused Azerbaijan of “declaring war” on his people, and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev promised “victory”.



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