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On the eve of the arrival of the Azerbaijani troops, the inhabitants of the village of Charektar, near Nagorno-Karabakh, are setting fire to their houses before fleeing to Armenia.
“Today is the last day and tomorrow the Azerbaijani soldiers will be here,” explains one of the inhabitants, with a tight throat, as he soaks an old shirt in gasoline and sets it on fire with a piece of wood, contemplating the fire in his home. .
Even though the flames are already consuming much of the room, the man throws burning boards to make sure everything remains in ashes, reports AFP.
“This is my house, I can’t leave it to the Turks,” he shoots, referring to the way Armenians call Azeris.
“Everyone is burning their houses today (…) They gave us until midnight to leave,” he adds.
On Tuesday, Yerevan and Baku signed a peace agreement following the Russian intervention, which ended six weeks of war and provides for the handover to Azerbaijan of several territories occupied by Armenia in the conflict between 1992 and 1994.
At the same time, Armenia will maintain control of the Nagorno-Karabakh enclave, where 150,000 people lived before the conflict began on September 27.
However, Yerevan loses control of the second city Shushi (Shushá for Armenians), which was conquered in the last days of this conflict by the Azeri forces.
In the border area with Nagorno-Karabakh, the town of Charektar marks the entrance to the Kalvajar region, a narrow valley that winds along the Tartarus River at the foot of high mountains and rugged cliffs.
Being one of the main inhabited areas, more than half of the houses in that village, many of them modest mountain peasant houses, were burned in the last 24 hours by their owners before leaving with as many belongings as possible.
It is not yet clear when and how the Azerbaijani forces will arrive. The Nagorno-Karabakh authorities have ensured that the road to Kalvajar, now the only route linking the enclave with Armenia, will remain under their control and Russian soldiers are circulating there.
On this same highway, migration is high and traffic is incessant towards the Armenian border town, Vardenis.
Also on the verge of being abandoned, the Kalvajar military base is experiencing moments of turmoil. The soldiers still present are packing ammunition, moving damaged vehicles and collecting as much as possible and also burning papers.
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