Sixteen years have elapsed ever since, but thinking of what happened at night on February 26, 1992, in one of the most beautiful corners of our country, Nagorno-Karabakh, still makes one’s flesh creep. On that horrific night recorded in black letters in history of the Azerbaijani people, the city of Khojaly was erased from the face of the earth with its peaceful residents brutally killed and tortured.

This bloody, uncivilized action was committed by Armenian armed groups supported by military personnel - including up to 40 officers and ensigns of Armenian origin - and equipment of the former soviet army’s motorized rifle regiment No366, then deployed in the city of Khankendi.

While thinking of what happened then, it is too hard to believe that it was committed by those, who call themselves human beings. Only monsters were capable to carry out such massive massacre killing 613 innocent people, including 106 women and 63 children and leaving 487 disabled. Besides, 1275 people, including the old, children and women, were taken hostage, and underwent severe torture and humiliation.

This is rough statistics given in the Statement the Milli Majlis of the Azerbaijan Republic issued last year on the 15th anniversary of the Khojaly genocide, one of the most monstrous crimes in the 20th century.

Human history recorded a number of genocide acts such as in Khatyn, Lidice and Oradour. But Khojaly is different: Armenian butchers even surpassed the fascists by aiming their arms against those they had been living side by side with for decades, in the same state.

Hundreds of true stories told by miraculously survived eye-witnesses, journalists and human rights activists to describe the Armenian barbarism, have appeared in a number of publications, including in those ordered by the Heydar Aliyev Foundation.

The stories give a horrific picture of tortured death of people, whose only fault was they were Azerbaijanis.

… Residents of the city were trampled by infantry fighting vehicles… They fired pointblank at the old, women and children, scalped and pulled out nails from captives, and put out eyes of the dead and cut their ears off…

Here are more concrete illustrations.

Sanubar Alakbarova (resident of Khojaly): - When fleeing through the forest to Aghdam, we were ambushed. I saw a lot of dead bodies piled up. My mother was shot dead. My daughters Sevinj and Hijran were wounded. A bullet hit me too. Young women and children were perishing on the snow…

Janan Orujov (resident of Khojaly): - They shot my son to death. He was 16. They took away my 23-year-old daughter with her twin babies, and my second 18-year-old daughter, who was pregnant…

Saria Talybova (resident of Khojaly): - …We were brought to Armenian cemetery. Four young Meskheti Turks, who had found asylum in our city, and three Azerbaijanis were sacrificed on the grave of an Armenian gunman. They cut the pour men’s heads off, and then began to torture and kill children before their parents’ very eyes. They used bulldozer to throw the dead bodies down the ravine. Armed with screwdrivers, they pricked out the eyes of two Azerbaijanis wearing national army uniform.

French journalist, Jean-Yves Junet:

- I had heard a lot about wars, about the cruelty of the Fascists, but the Armenians were worse, killing five- and six-year-old children, killing innocent civilians.

V. Belykh, reporter of Russian newspaper «Izvestiya»: «…From time to time, dead bodies exchanged to living hostages are brought to Agdam. It is worse than any nightmare: pricked eyes, cut ears and heads, scalps… There were bunches of dead bodies, which, evidently, had long been dragged along the ground by a fighting vehicle. Torture knows no limits…

Sunday Times: Armenian soldiers annihilated hundreds families.

Washington Post: «…The corpses of seven dead men were shown today, two of them children and three-women. 120 refugees are in Agdam hospital, many bodies are stabbed.»

Le Monde: «Foreign journalists in Agdam saw three scalped corpses with pulled out nails among women and children killed in Khojaly. This is not Azerbaijan propaganda but reality.»

«Times»: … «Many people were mutilated, and it was remained only the head of one little girl»

Outrage upon both the living and the dead was also confirmed by the Russian human rights center «Memorial», which registered the fact of scalping alive, and made examinations to find out the causes of Khojaly residents’ massive death.

Reading all this is enough to make one horrified...

«Crime in Khojaly can not be justified in public opinion», said Journalist of British TV R. Patrick, who visited the place of tragedy.

But look what is the attitude to the tragedy taken by notorious Armenian «ideologist» Zoriy Balaian, a doctor, who broke Hyppocrat’s oath, a journalist, who broke all rules of journalism ethics, inspirer and organizer of the acts of insanity which caused hundreds of ruined fates from both sides. Here is how he assesses the genocide of Azerbaijanis in Khojaly in his book Revival of Our Spirit published in 1996: «Every Armenian must be proud of this action.» What a scary words!

Even more shocking are revelations of the author, who lost his conscience and humanity, cited by our Russia-based compatriot Jafar Sadig in his collection Beyond the Statute of limitation: «When Khachatur and I entered one of the seized houses,» Balaian writes, «our soldiers nailed a 13-year-old Turk [Azerbaijani] to the window-frame. Then, Khachatur divided the boy’s dead body into parts and threw them at dogs. In the evening we did the same to another three kids. I did my duty as a man, who loves Armenians...»

It is possible to presume that he who committed and wrote with relish about that qualifying his action as doing a patriotic duty, is mentally sick. As for Balaian, he hardly needs specialized treatment. Wanted by the Interpol, he will probably be brought to court for stirring up inter-ethnic hostility, murders and other crimes against humanity.

These deliberate actions with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group prove, in accordance with international law, that what happened in the Azerbaijani city of Khojaly was an act of genocide, and along with tragedies mentioned above, must be recognized as genuine genocide.

Not only peaceful people of the planet, civilized nations and international organizations must be aware of this bitter truth but the crime committed against humanity must be given legal assessment. It should be noted that the Armenian aggression against Azerbaijan saw all signs of genocide enshrined in the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide adopted by the UN General Assembly in December 9, 1948.

The Khojaly tragedy was a continuation of the policy of ethnic cleansing and genocide carried out by Armenian nationalists and their supporters against the Azerbaijani people for almost 200 years. The impotent and incompetent leadership of Azerbaijan of early 1990s, remained indifferent towards the bloody action making no effort to inform the international community about the massacre. They were not touched even by the fact that defenders of the city had not bowed down to the enemies but demonstrated heroism and devotion to the homeland in the battle with them.

Only after national leader of Azerbaijan Heydar Aliyev returned to power, the truth about the scale and horrors of the crimes committed by Armenian nationalists against Azerbaijanis and strong demand to give legal assessment to that was brought to the international community. This course is being insistently continued by President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev.

Commemorating the innocent victims of the tragedy in Khojaly on these days of its 16th anniversary, the people of Azerbaijan once again with hope and belief call on the nations and peoples of the world as well as international organizations to defend truth and justice, condemn the Khojaly genocide and bring its culprits, organizers and executors to account.

Crime must not remain unpunished!

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