“It’s not a crisis, it’s a genocide,” former prosecutor at international court asserts

In a breakthrough report on Nagorno-Karabakh (Artsakh), the founding prosecutor of the International Criminal Court Luis Moreno Ocampo classified the situation in the region as Genocide. 

“The blockade of the Lachin Corridor by the Azerbaijani security forces impeding access to any food, medical supplies, and other essentials should be considered a Genocide under Article II, (c) of the Genocide Convention: ‘Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction.’” 

The Lachin Corridor refers to the only road that connects the region of Nagorno-Karabakh to Armenia and to the rest of the world, which Azerbaijani forces have closed off completely. Under siege, 120,000 Armenians are grappling with severe shortages of food, energy, medicine and other essentials. Deaths and starvation are the new normal in the region.

Calling it genocide by starvation, Ocampo warns that “without immediate dramatic change, this group of Armenians will be destroyed in a few weeks.” 

In its assessment, the report refers to Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev’s deliberate blocking of “the provision of life’s essentials to the Armenians living in Nagorno-Karabakh,” and his unwillingness to obey orders from the International Court of Justice, “to ensure unimpeded movement of persons, vehicles, and cargo along the Lachin Corridor. 

Convoys of aid are awaiting on the Armenian side of the checkpoint, but Baku refuses any aid for the people in Karabakh - a population Baku claims as its own.