Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan visited the Yerablur military cemetery on April 2to pay tribute to the memory of the fallen soldiers of the 2016 April War and the Artsakh Liberation War.
Defense Minister Davit Tonoyan was accompanying the PM on the visit.
Today marks the fourth anniversary of the four-day heavy offfensives along the Nagorno-Karabakh (Artsakh) Line of Contact.
The armed clashes began in the early hours of April 2, 2016 after the Azerbaijani troops fired Armenian defense positions along the frontline, provoking large-scale confrontations with the Defense Army of Nagorno-Kkarabakh. Heavier clashes were reported in the southern and north-eastern directions targeting the towns of Hadrut and Marakert.
Azerbaijan’s military used all the available arms supplies in its arsenal.
The military aggression continued also in the early morning hours of April 3 after the adversary opened fire from rocket artilleries and armoured vehicles. In an official statement later the same day, Azerbaijan’s Ministry of Defense announced a “unilateral ceasefire”, but the military actions continued in the subsequent hours, keeping the civilians of Martakert under fire.
In the late night hours of April 3 and the early hours of April 4, Azerbaijan kept shelling the frontline positions and civilian settlements along the Line of Contact. On the night of April 5, the adversary released fire from the heavy multiple rocket-launcher BM-30 Smerch.
A subsequent ceasefire, concluded at 12:00pm on April 5, continued until the next day. On the night of April 7, the Azerbaijani troops launched a commando raid against north-eastern frontline positions (Talish) but were pushed backed shortly afterwards, suffering a loss.