26th Anniversary of Deportation of Azerbaijanis from Armenia

26 years have passed since the last deportation of Azerbaijanis from Armenia.

Azerbaijani population was expelled from the 172 settlements on the territory of 8,000 square kilometers. The total number of people deported in the cold December of 1988 amounted to 182,000 (UNHCR).

Also deported were 18,000 thousand Kurds and Russians (the data of the Commission on Refugees of the Supreme Council of Azerbaijan).

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

The Armenian author Zaren Karkadyan in his book Population of Soviet Armenia in 1831-1931 writes that until 1820, from the 2,300 settlements on the territory of modern Armenia Azerbaijanis lived in 2000. After the signing of the treaty of Gulistan, Azerbaijanis were periodically subjected to mass deportation.

The book Dictionary of Names of Armenia and the Surrounding Areas published in Yerevan in 1986 says that 70% of the population residing in the territory of Armenia arrived from Turkey and Iran in the years 1828-1930.

In the XX century, mass deportation of Azerbaijanis from Armenia took place in 1905, 1918-1920, 1948-1956, and 1987-1988. As a result, more than 1 million 500 thousand Azerbaijanis were deported from their historical places of residence.

After the creation of the Soviet Armenia, Azerbaijanis lived in 940 villages, 698 of which were renamed during the Soviet era. In 1991, 91 more settlements were renamed in the Armenian manner. -03B04-