Page 39 - KDK

The Report on Human Rights Violations Committed by the
38 Armenian Armed Forces during Azerbaijan & Armenia War

9
and left more than 70 injured. The organization reported that they checked
the photographs of the cluster bomb remnants taken by international and
local journalists and local residents; two of the projectiles were identified as a
Smerch cluster munition rocket and a Smerch parachute-retarded high-explosive

fragmentation rocket; while Armenian armed forces possessed multiple-launch
rocket systems, Nagorno-Karabakh forces did not, therefore Armenian forces were
likely to have carried out the attack or supplied the said munition to the Nagorno-
Karabakh forces. It was also reported that Barda had a population of 40.000; the
attack took place in the middle of the day when no one was prepared and no
military presence was visible before or after the attack, as recalled by a witnessing
foreign journalist; one of the attacks took place closer than 100 meters to Barda
Central Hospital, the largest and fully-equipped hospital of the area; and even if
a military element had been present, it would still have been forbidden under the
laws of war to use cluster munitions in civilian settlement areas, considering the
indiscriminate effects of such munitions.

Amnesty International also confirmed that Armenian forces fired 9N235 cluster
munitions Russian-made 9M55 Smerch rockets in the attack on the city of Barda
on October 28, 2020.
10
Aiming to protect civilians and curb the grief caused by the armed conflict, in-
ternational humanitarian law has fundamental principles and rules regarding the
choice of weapons, prohibiting some of them from use. An independent and
impartial philanthropic organization authorized by the Geneva Conventions of
1949, the International Committee of Red Cross (ICRC) leads the efforts to draw
up directives regulating the use of certain weapons. ICRC conducted a study on
“Customary International Humanitarian Law” and made a 161-item list of the

Customary International Humanitarian Laws. According to the Rule 71, “The
use of weapons which are by nature indiscriminate is prohibited.”

9 https://www.hrw.org/news/2020/10/30/armenia-cluster-munitions-kill-civilians-azerbaijan
10 https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2020/10/armenia-azerbaijan-first-confirmed-use-of-c-
luster-munitions-by-armenia-cruel-and-reckless/