35th anniversary of Azerbaijanis deportation from Armenia

Baku/01.12.23/Turan: 35 years have passed since the last deportation of Azerbaijanis from the territory of Armenia in 1988.

Recall that the Azerbaijani population was expelled from 172 settlements in an area of 8.000 square kilometers. Total number of those expelled in the cold December of 1988 was 182.000 people (UNHCR data).

Besides, 18,000 Kurds and a thousand Russians were deported (according to the Commission on Refugees of the Supreme Council of Azerbaijan).

According to the materials of the investigation of the USSR Ministry of Internal Affairs, 216 Azerbaijanis were killed during the forced deportation (two were beheaded, 11 burned alive, one hanged, three dismembered, 29 crushed by cars, 41 beaten to death, 49 frozen in the mountains, 1 person electrocuted, 8 missing. Of those killed, 57 were women and 23 children.

Armenian author Zaren Karkadian in his book "The Population of Soviet Armenia in 1831-1931" writes that before 1820, Azerbaijanis lived in 2000 out of 2,300 settlements on the territory of modern Armenia. After the signing of the Gulistan Treaty of 1813, Azerbaijanis were periodically subjected to mass deportation.

In the book "Dictionary of Toponyms of Armenia and Adjacent Areas" published in Yerevan in 1986, it is written that 70% of those living in the territory of modern Armenia arrived there in 1828-1930 from Turkey and Iran.

In the 20th century, mass deportations of Azerbaijanis from Armenia took place in 1905, 1918-1920, 1948-1956, 1987-1988. As a result, over 1 million 500.000 Azerbaijanis were deported from their historical places of residence in total.

After the creation of Soviet Armenia, the Azerbaijanis lived in 940 settlements, 698 of them were renamed in Soviet times. In 1991, 91 more settlements were renamed in the Armenian way. -03B04-