Italian media publishes articles about Azerbaijanis missing due to Armenian aggression

On August 30, International Day of the Victims of Enforced Disappearances, the issue of the disappearance of about 4,000 Azerbaijanis as a result of Armenia’s military aggression against Azerbaijan was in the spotlight of the Italian media.

The Italian analytical portal Lo Spessore has published an article by researcher-journalist Domenico Letizia, head of the Institute of International Economics and Politics Research (IREPI), entitled “Azerbaijanis Missing during the Conflict with Armenia.” KmetroO and Metro CT news portals and Agenzia Nova news agency also wrote based on a press release prepared by the Azerbaijani Embassy in Italy on the International Day of the Victims of Enforced Disappearances, entitled ‘Where are Azerbaijanis’, ‘Missing Persons in Azerbaijan’, ‘International Missing Persons Day in the attention of Azerbaijan’.

According to the articles, the tragedy of the disappearance of Azerbaijanis due to Armenia’s military aggression against Azerbaijan in the early 1990s began. The date mentioned in this regard is also remembered in Azerbaijan. The fate of 3,890 Azerbaijanis who went missing as a result of Armenia’s nearly 30-year military occupation of Azerbaijani lands is still unknown. Although the detention and ill-treatment of civilians are explicitly prohibited by international humanitarian law, 267 Azerbaijani civilians are being held hostage by the Armenian armed forces. The articles also mentioned the capture of civilian hostages by Armenia and their use as a tool for political blackmail and assessed the fact of releasing 1,102 Azerbaijanis from Armenian captivity as recognition of this fact by Armenian authorities.

The reports also note that many Azerbaijani families currently have expectations from the international community about the fate of their missing relatives and that many organizations have confirmed that Armenia is torturing Azerbaijani civilians.

The article emphasizes that the Khojaly genocide of Azerbaijanis on February 25-26, 1992, as a bloody example of a crime against humanity, is remembered as one of the most severe and dramatic events of the former Armenian-Azerbaijani Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. In this regard, it was stated that 613 people, including 106 women, were brutally killed, eight families were utterly destroyed, and 487 people, including 76 children, were wounded during the genocide carried out by the Armenian troops. At present, 196 Khojaly residents, including 36 children and 65 women, have been registered as missing by the State Commission on Captives and Hostages (as of July 1, 2021). 95 out of 196 people, including 16 children and 22 women, were taken hostage by the Armenian armed forces in Khojaly.