“There are many bodies, including of civilians, transported from Nagorno-Karabakh to Armenia that carry signs of torture and/or mutilation,” Anahit Manasian told reporters. “This shows that those people were subjected to the kind of treatment which was mentioned by me. There were children and women among them.”
Manasian did not specify the number of the victims of the alleged war crimes, saying that her office is continuing its “fact-finding work” on the September 19-20 assault that enabled Baku to regain full control of Karabakh.
According to Karabakh officials, the Azerbaijani offensive left more than 200 Karabakh soldiers and two dozen local civilians dead. More than 100,000 ethnic Armenians lived there prior to the exodus.
Manasian said that her office has drawn up a “preliminary report” containing purported evidence of atrocities collected by it so far. The reported has been submitted to the International Court of Justice (ICJ), added the state human rights defender.
The Armenian government appealed to the United Nations court on September 28 to order Baku to guarantee the safe and speedy return to their homes of the Karabakh Armenians who have taken refuge in Armenia. It also wants the Azerbaijani side to withdraw military and security personnel from Karabakh civilian facilities, give the UN and other international organizations access to the depopulated region and protect its religious and cultural monuments.
Baku has denied targeting Karabakh civilians during the two-day military operation or forcing them to flee their homeland in the following days. It has pledged to protect the rights of local residents willing to live under Azerbaijani rule.