Armenia and Azerbaijan have declared new humanitarian ceasefires, but clashes continue

The ceasefire was aimed at stopping the resurgence of fierce fighting since September 27, which has already claimed the lives of more than 700 people. Earlier on Saturday, 13 people were killed and more than 40 wounded in a rocket attack in Geneva, Azerbaijan’s second-largest city.

“The Republic of Armenia and the Republic of Azerbaijan have agreed to a humanitarian ceasefire starting on October 18 at 0 pm local time,” the Armenian Foreign Ministry said in a statement Saturday night.

The Azerbaijani Ministry confirmed this step in the same report.

This is the second attempt by the warring parties to stop the fighting in Nagorno-Karabakh since the start of new fighting late last month. On October 10, Armenia and Azerbaijan agreed to cease fire after 11 hours of talks in Moscow mediated by Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov. However, the two parties later accused each other of violating the agreement.

Reports of violations of the new ceasefire regime were also announced Sunday morning.

“Despite the new humanitarian ceasefire regime starting at 0 a.m., the Armenian armed forces have flagrantly violated the agreement once again,” said the Azerbaijani Defense Ministry, adding that the areas along the along the front line they were fired on with artillery and mortars.

Azerbaijan noted that its army is taking retaliatory measures.

The Nagorno-Karabakh region in western Azerbaijan since the 1994 ceasefire, which stopped 30,000 life-threatening war, controlled by Armenian separatists.

However, Armenia, which supports Nagorno-Karabakh, while not recognizing its independence, has acknowledged that the Azerbaijani forces at the front have made significant progress in the last week.

The fighting that began on September 27 is the most intense since the war of the 1990s. Thousands of people had to leave their homes; It is feared that the fighting will escalate into a devastating conflict.