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On-Site Investigation Report on Human Rights in Karabakh

garding the attacks launched by Armenia along the Karabakh front line on
27 September 2020 and the alleged violations of human rights as a result.
Within this scope, I visited the cities of Ganja and Mingachevir, where it is
claimed that civilian settlements were hit and many civilians lost their lives,
to examine the allegations on-site.

With the Ombudsman Institution delegation accompanying me, we sadly
saw the wreckage of the public buildings, houses where civilians lived, and
places of worship that were damaged, and we interviewed civilians who lost
their family members. Afterwards, we compiled our observations and find-
ings and published them as a report.

In this period, the end of the Second Karabakh War, also known as the 44-Day
War, with the tripartite statement signed on 10 November 2020 between Rus-
sia, Azerbaijan, and Armenia, and the liberation of around 290 settlements
from the occupation of Armenia as a result of the conflicts were pleasing
developments in terms of the opportunity for people who had to leave their
homes to return to their homes.

There is no doubt that no war has a winner. Recently, unfortunately, we have
been witnessing violations of human rights in Ukraine as a result of the at-
tacks of the Russian Federation. We are saddened to watch that civilians,
including women, children, and the elderly, lost their lives in the attacks, and
that millions of people left their homes and sought refuge in neighbouring
countries in search of a safe haven. As a result of the unfair occupation of
Azerbaijani lands by Armenia, innocent civilians have lost their lives, and
hundreds of thousands of people have been forced to leave their homes.
Lastly, during the 44-day war, civilian settlements were targeted by Arme-
nia; dozens of civilians, including women and children, and even babies, lost
their lives as a result of the attacks. Upon the end of the war and the liber-
ation of Azerbaijani lands from occupation, the Ombudsman of Azerbaijan,
Ms Sabina Aliyeva, once again invited the Members of the Board of Directors
of OICOA to Azerbaijan. This time, during our study visit as the OICOA del-
egation, we conducted examinations in the provinces of Shusha, Fuzuli, and
Aghdam, which were liberated from the occupation, and in the province of
Tartar, a civilian settlement that was under attack for 44 days. In our exam-
inations, we found that historical artefacts, museums, and mosques, which
should not be considered as belonging to only one nation but should be
protected by being considered as belonging to the whole world heritage,
were damaged during the occupation to such an extent that they could not
be used. We regretfully observed that the graves were deliberately destroyed,
that even the vegetation disappeared, and that only a part of the walls re-

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