Planned beforehand, the Azerbaijani forces used combat drones, artillery, and large caliber firearms. As a result, Armenia has 207 killed or missing servicemembers, 5 killed civilians, and hundreds of wounded, more than 7600 civilians have been internally displaced. For a country with less than 3 million population, these numbers are significant.

The decades-long state-sponsored propaganda of hatred and intolerance towards Armenians in Azerbaijan is evident here. Aside from the evidence of ill-treatment, torture, humiliation, mutilation, and execution of Armenian prisoners of war, during the recent attacks, Azerbaijani servicemen have also stripped naked, tortured, and executed female Armenian servicemembers. Dozens of graphic videos depicting the inhuman treatment and execution of Armenian servicemembers, and civilians have been voluntarily shared and disseminated on social networks by Azerbaijani servicemen, speaking to an absence of a fear of punishment.  The especially horrific treatment of Armenian female servicemembers qualifies as gravest gender-based violence. The cause of this behavior is deeply rooted misogyny of Azerbaijani servicemen and society at large as proven also by the encouragement and normalization of these offenses on social media by Azerbaijani users.

On September 16, 2021, Armenia filed a case at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) against Azerbaijan to combat Azerbaijan’s state-sponsored policy of armenophobia, from which Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh and Armenia have been subjected to systemic discrimination, killings, and torture. On August 30, 2022, the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination published its Concluding observations on Azerbaijan expressing its concerns and recommendations to Azerbaijan stating that “(4) the Committee is deeply concerned about: (c) Incitement to racial hatred and the propagation of racist stereotypes against persons of Armenian national or ethnic origin, including on the Internet and social media, as well as by public figures and governmental officials, and the lack of detailed information on investigations, prosecutions, convictions and sanctions of such acts.”

On October 2, a new video was disseminated on Azerbaijani Telegram channels, showing Azerbaijani soldiers executing Armenian POWs on Armenian territory. Armenia’s Ombudsperson has confirmed the authenticity of the video.

We, the undersigned, are appalled by the silence and equivocation of the international community around this aggression and violence. This silence only serves to embolden the Azerbaijani government and makes the achievement of peace in the South Caucasus impossible. Human rights organizations have a particular responsibility to speak up against the impunity of the Azerbaijani government and hold it to account for its gross human rights violations, torture, and other breaches of international obligations.

The undersigned civil society organizations of Armenia: