By CNN
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Armenian soccer player Henrikh Mkhitaryan has called on international leaders to “stand up against ethnic cleansing” in the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region.
Nagorno-Karabakh is a landlocked region in the Caucasus Mountains that is internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan but is home to around 120,000 ethnic Armenians, who make up the majority of the population and reject Azerbaijani rule.
The region has its own de facto government that is backed by Armenia, but is not officially recognized by Armenia or any other country.
In a post on X, formerly known as Twitter, the Inter Milan midfielder said his “heart breaks” as he is getting more information about “the stories of trauma, loss, and severe violations of human rights of thousands of Armenian families who are being forcibly displaced from Nagorno Karabakh and flee for Armenia in a mass exodus.”
Just over 47,000 people arrived in Armenia from Nagorno-Karabakh as of 12.15 p.m. local time (4.15aET) Wednesday, the Armenian prime minister’s spokesperson said.
The vast majority of those arriving continue to be women, children and the elderly, a spokesperson for the Armenian Red Cross told CNN Wednesday.
The latest figures mean that more than one-third of the region’s roughly ethnic Armenians have left Nagorno-Karabakh for Armenia.
Nagorno-Karabakh has been under blockade since December 2022, when Azerbaijan-backed activists established a military checkpoint on the Lachin corridor – the only road connecting the landlocked enclave to Armenia.
The blockade prevented the import of food, fuel and medicine to Nagorno-Karabakh, prompting fears that residents were being left to starve. A former International Criminal Court chief prosecutor said in August there is “reasonable basis to believe that genocide is being committed against Armenians” in the region.
The closure of the Lachin corridor has also prevented international organizations and foreign media from accessing Nagorno-Karabakh. The road was only opened last weekend to allow residents to flee.
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Mkhitaryan, the former Manchester United and Arsenal player, wrote: “We often look back to those dark pages of indiscriminate killings, ethnic cleansing and concentration camps with remorse, and regret that no one did enough to stop it.”
The 34-year-old also called for the “deployment of international monitoring missions” and the “immediate mobilization of emergency humanitarian aid” through the Lachin corridor.
In 2019, while playing for Arsenal, Mkhitaryan missed the Europa League final in Baku, Azerbaijan, due to fears over his safety
Armenia and Azerbaijan have been locked in a century-long conflict stemming from the fall of the Russian Empire in 1917.
Azerbaijan’s brief but bloody offensive last week killed more than 200 people and injured many more, before ethnic Armenian Karabakh officials in the enclave agreed to a Russia-brokered ceasefire in which they agreed to dissolve their armed forces.
Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev said Baku had restored its sovereignty over the enclave “with an iron fist.”
The Karabakh presidency told Reuters that the majority of Karabakh Armenians did not want to live in Azerbaijan and that they would leave for Armenia.
Azerbaijan has said it will guarantee the rights of those living in the region, but Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and international experts have repeatedly warned of risks of ethnic cleansing of Armenians in the enclave.
