On 19–20 September 2023, Azerbaijan initiated a military offensive in the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region which ended with the surrender of the self-declared Republic of Artsakh, the disbandment of its armed forces and the effective expulsion of the entire population. Up until the military assault, the region was internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan, but was governed and populated by ethnic Armenians.

Before the Second Nagorno-Karabakh War in 2020, the region had an estimated population of 150,000 which decreased in the aftermath of the war. Faced with threats of ethnic cleansing by Azerbaijan and struggling amid a nine-month long blockade, 100,400 ethnic Armenians, representing 99% of the remaining population of Nagorno-Karabakh, fled by the end of September 2023, leaving only a couple of dozen people within the region.

This mass forced displacement of people has been described by international experts as a war crime or crime against humanity. 288 civilians died while fleeing to Armenia, including 218 during an explosion at a fuel distribution center, and 70 civilians while en route to Armenia.

While the Azerbaijani government issued assurances that the Armenian population would be safely reintegrated, these claims were not deemed credible due to Azerbaijan's established track record of authoritarianism and repression of its Armenian population.

Background

The Nagorno-Karabakh conflict is an ethnic and territorial dispute between Armenia and Azerbaijan over the region of Nagorno-Karabakh, which is located within Azerbaijan but was, historically, predominantly inhabited by Armenians.

Cultural suppression during the Soviet period

Between 1921 and 1990, under the Azeri SSR Armenians in the region faced economic marginalization and cultural discrimination, leading to a significant exodus.Laurila, Juhani. "Power Politics and Oil as Determinants of Transition: the case of Azerbaijan." (1999). "The Azerbaijanis can be accused of depriving the 130 000 Armenians living in the Nogorno-Karabakh of their possibilities to watch TV broadcasts from Yerevan, of their right to study Armenian history and their access to Armenian literature. The Azerbaijani government, too, can be said to have conducted racial, cultural and economic discrimination against the Nagorno Karabakh Armenians. Over 80 000 Nagorno-Karabakh residents signed an address asking for annexation of Nagorno-Karabakh to Armenia. Based on this address the Council of Representatives of Nagorno-Karabakh turned to Supreme Council of the USSR, Azerbaijan and Armenia with request to transfer the Nagorno-Karabakh under Armenia." Authorities encouraged the settlement of Azeris from outside Nagorno-Karabakh. This policy – sometimes called a "White Genocide"New Times, New Times Publishing House, 1994 "This would inevitably result in a "final solution," a new carnage of Karabakh Armenians or, at best, if international control is established, in "white genocide," that is, the breaking up and ousting of the national group by economic means...".Tsypylma Darieva, Wolfgang Kaschuba. Representations on the Margins of Europe: Politics and Identities in the Baltic and South Caucasian States, Campus Verlag GmbH, 2007, , p. 111 "Thus, the notion of 'genocide', as perceived by the people, included the expressions 'white genocide' (bearing in mind the example of the ethnic cleansing of Nakhichevan and Nagorno- Karabagh of Armenians)...".Ole Høiris, Sefa Martin Yürükel. Contrasts and solutions in the Caucasus, Aarhus Univ. Press, 1998, , p. 234 "...the Azerbaijanization of Nakhichevan is called a 'white genocide', that is, one that operates by erasure of evidence of Armenian residence"Mark Malkasian, Gha-ra-bagh!: the emergence of the national democratic movement in Armenia, p. 56Stuart J. Kaufman, Modern Hatreds: The Symbolic Politics of Ethnic War, p. 55James Sperling, S. Victor Papacosma, Limiting Institutions?: the challenge of Eurasian security governance, p. 51 – aimed at "de-Armenizing" the territory culturally and physically and followed a similar pattern to Azerbaijan's treatment of Armenians in Nakhchivan. The suppression of Armenian language and culture was widespread: Armenian churches, cemeteries, and schools were closed or destroyed, and clerics arrested.Chorbajian, Levon. The making of Nagorno-Karabagh: from secession to republic. Springer, 2001. "There was overwhelming evidence demonstrating the existence of anti-Armenian policy in Nagorno-Karabagh sanctioned by Azerbaijan. Accounts of forced migrations and resettlement were substantiated by the decreasing and increasing percentage of Armenians and Azeris respectively in the population.61 The lack of economic development and demographic manipulations had been accompanied by cultural suppression. In the 1930s, 118 Armenian churches were closed, clerics arrested and text- books on Armenian history banned from schools. During the 1960s, 28 Armenian schools were closed, churches and cemeteries destroyed and Azeri was imposed as the official language of the republic. During the late 1960s and early 1970s, cultural ties with Armenia were severed and Azeris began to be appointed in Nagorno-Karabagh's law enforcement and economic bodies." The Armenian educational institutions that remained were under control by the Azeri Ministry of Education, which enforced prohibitions against teaching Armenian history and using Armenian materials. Restrictions limited cultural exchanges and communication between Nagorno-Karabakh and Armenia. The Azerbaijani government decreed in 1957 that Azerbaijani was to be the main languageMalkasian, Mark. Gha-ra-bagh!: The Emergence of the National Democratic Movement in Armenia. Wayne State University Press, 1996 and the 1981 "law of the NKAR" denied additional rights, removing provisions that had listed Armenian as a working language of local authorities.

Resentment against what was perceived as a forced "Azerification" campaign led to a mass movement for reunification with Armenia. In February 1988, the Karabakh Movement escalated from rallies to mass strikes and civil disobedience for unification with Armenia. The regional Soviet of Nagorno-Karabakh endorsed these demands in a resolution that effectively challenged Soviet internal borders, as hundreds of thousands mobilized in the largest protest movement in the Soviet Union since its formative years in the 1920s.

In November 1991, the Azerbaijani government passed a motion to abolish the autonomy of the Nagorno-Karabakh entity and facilitate a form of culturally motivated ethnic cleansing by enforcing the exclusive use of Azerbaijani placenames for the cities of Stepanakert, Mardakert, and Martuni. In response, the Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh held an independence referendum in 1991.

First and Second Nagorno-Karabakh War The Karabakh movement for independence was met with a series of pogroms and forced deportations of Armenians across Azerbaijan, leading to the outbreak of the First Nagorno-Karabakh War. Azerbaijan severed transport and economic links between Armenia and Azerbaijan and between Artsakh and Armenia. The complete isolation of Artsakh from the outside world lasted for 3 years until Armenian forces opened a humanitarian corridor known as the Lachin corridor to Armenia in May 1992. The war resulted in the displacement of approximately 500,000 Azerbaijanis from Nagorno-Karabakh and the adjacent occupied territories as well as 186,000 from Armenia, and between 300,000 and 500,000 Armenians from Azerbaijan. A subsequent conflict, the Second Nagorno-Karabakh War in 2020, caused thousands of casualties and ended with a significant Azerbaijani victory. This war allowed Azerbaijan to reclaim all the territories surrounding Nagorno-Karabakh and a third of Nagorno-Karabakh itself. After the 2020 war, violations of the ceasefire in Nagorno-Karabakh and at the Armenian-Azerbaijani border persisted, resulting in sporadic casualties.

Blockade and capture of the region by Azerbaijan

For nine months (December 2022 to September 2023), Azerbaijan blocked the Lachin corridor, the only road connecting Nagorno-Karabakh to Armenia. During this period Azerbaijan also sabotaged critical civilian infrastructure of Artsakh, disrupting access to gas, electricity, and internet access. The blockade led to a humanitarian crisis for the population. In February 2023 the International Court of Justice ordered Azerbaijan to ensure free movement to Nagorno-Karabakh, ruling that the blockade posed a "real and imminent risk" to the "health and life" of Nagorno-Karabakh's Armenian population. By early September 2023 the blockade had caused supplies to all but run out; there was little medicine or fuel, while bread, a staple in the region, was rationed to one loaf per family per day.

International observers, including Luis Moreno Ocampo, the inaugural prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, expressed concerns that Azerbaijan's blockade could be the onset of a genocide. Ocampo specifically stated that Azerbaijan's actions, which included withholding essential supplies like food and medicine, appeared to be a calculated effort to inflict on the Armenian population of Nagorno-Karabakh conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction. In August 2023, as a direct result of the blockade, a resident of Nagorno-Karabakh died from starvation. The spokesperson for Charles Michel, President of the European Council, stated their primary goal was the irreversible normalization of Armenian-Azerbaijani relations and called for "courageous compromise solutions". The Armenian President denounced Azerbaijan, asserting it was committing genocide by causing Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh to starve. Similarly, Ronald Grigor Suny stated, "Baku is determined to make the Armenians' lives impossible, starve them out, and pressure them to leave."

On 19 September 2023, Azerbaijan initiated an offensive in Nagorno-Karabakh, aiming to disarm the self-declared republic's military. The assault, lasting 24 hours, resulted in hundreds of casualties from both sides and the deaths of five Russian peacekeepers. After the Republic of Artsakh's government agreed to surrender terms, negotiations ensued, leading Azerbaijan to eventually reopen the road to Armenia. This move provided Armenians an avenue to evacuate the region, and a significant number began departing from 24 September onward.

Flight Prior to the Azerbaijani military offensive in Nagorno-Karabakh, there were growing concerns that Azerbaijan, with a long history of Anti-Armenian sentiment, might commit a genocide against the region's Armenians. , the representative of the Azerbaijani president, predicted that "a genocide may happen" if the Republic of Artsakh did not capitulate. Echoing this concern Senator Bob Menendez, chair of the United States Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, urged for sanctions to be imposed against Azerbaijan to prevent genocide.

After the Nagorno-Karabakh defenses collapsed, the Lemkin Institute for Genocide Prevention warned of an acute risk of genocide, fueled by extreme anti-Armenian sentiment in the Azerbaijani military, while Azerbaijani social media teemed with threats, abuse, and reports of massacres of Armenians who stayed. In a concurrent announcement, Genocide Watch sounded an alert, categorizing the situation as "Stage 9 – Extermination" within their ten stages of genocide framework.

Absence of credible safety guarantees for integration within Azerbaijan While the Azerbaijani government issued assurances that the Armenian population would be safely "reintegrated," these claims were not deemed credible due to Azerbaijan's established track record of authoritarianism and repression of its Armenian population. Noting this history, the Lemkin Institute for Genocide Prevention urged that Artsakhi women and children refuse being separated from men and older boys.