Azerbaijan - June 2023

The Azerbaijani blockade of Nagorno-Karabakh in place since 12 December 2022 was expanded to include humanitarian convoys provided by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and Russian peacekeepers on 15 June, completely cutting the region off from the outside world. The expanded blockade exacerbated existing food and medicine shortages and prevented the ICRC from evacuating patients in need of urgent care; the blockade was lifted on 25 June for the ICRC, two days after Russian peacekeepers airlifted a critically ill one-year-old child to Armenia. The blockade has been criticized as illegal by the European Parliament. Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova accused Azerbaijan of holding Karabakh’s population hostage, and Armenian Prime Minster Nikol Pashinyan called the blockade “a policy of ethnic cleansing.”

Sources: Eurasianet, OC Media, Radio Azatutyun