Six months of blockade in Nagorno-Karabakh
For half a year now the Lachin corridor, the only road connecting Nagorno-Karabakh with Armenia, has been blocked. The Ombudsman of the NK published an extraordinary report summarizing the latest data on the consequences of the blockade.
According to this document, the economy of the unrecognized republic was damaged by about 346 million dollars, and about 11,000 people lost their jobs and livelihoods.
On December 12, 2022, a group of Azerbaijanis posing as environmentalists blocked the Lachin corridor. Later, the Azerbaijani media wrote that they were representatives of NGOs closely associated with the authorities. They stopped their action in April when Baku set up an official checkpoint near the bridge over the Hakari River. The Armenian authorities have been talking about the humanitarian crisis in Nagorno-Karabakh all this time, but Baku continues to insist that the road is not blocked.
Previously, videos of the movement of Red Cross vehicles and Russian peacekeepers along the road were published as evidence of this assertion. After the establishment of the checkpoint, Azerbaijan distributes footage of people passing through the checkpoint without any escort. Armenian media reports that no one has yet passed unaccompanied. According to Armenian journalists, the footage mainly shows patients leaving NK for treatment, and those who return home after the end of treatment in Armenia. There are also family members who return to NK from Armenia, accompanied by members of the International Committee of the Red Cross and peacekeepers, but during filming they are asked to leave the frame.