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The Khojaly Massacre was the killing of ethnic Azerbaijani civilians outside of the town of Khojaly on 25 February 1992 during the Nagorno-Karabakh War.

Following can't be in a lead
According to the Azerbaijani side, as well as Memorial Human Rights Center, Human Rights Watch and other international observers,  the massacre was committed by the ethnic Armenian armed forces, reportedly with help of the Russian 366th Motor Rifle Regiment. The official death toll provided by Azerbaijani authorities is 613 civilians, of them 106 women and 83 children.

Background
In 1988 the town had about 2,000 inhabitants. Due to the Nagorno-Karabakh war and the population exchanges between Armenia and Azerbaijan as well as Azeri refugees leaving Central Asia and subsequent settlement in the town, this grew to 6,000 by 1991. The town of Khojaly was located on the road that connected Stepanakert and Agdam and was the base for the region's only airport. According to reports from Human Rights Watch, Khojaly was used as a base for Azerbaijani forces shelling the city of Stepanakert, and in turn was shelled by Armenian forces.

During the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, Armenians were victims of the Sumgait pogrom in 1988, pogroms and evacuation of Armenians in Baku during the Black January events in 1990, and Operation Ring in May of 1991 and this resulted in many Armenians being displaced from Azerbaijan to Nagorno-Karabakh.

In October 1991, the Nagorno Karabakh forces cut the road connecting Khojaly and Aghdam, so that the only way to reach the town was in a helicopter. The town was defended by the local OMON forces under the command of Alif Hajiev, which numbered about 160 or so lightly armed men. Prior to the attack, the town had been without electricity and gas for several months.

The massacre
According to Human Rights Watch, the tragedy struck when “a large column of residents, accompanied by a few dozen retreating fighters, fled the city as it fell to Armenian forces. As they approached the border with Azerbaijan, they came across an Armenian military post and were cruelly fired upon”.

The Armenian side states that the killings occurred as a result of wartime military operations, and were in part caused by the prevention of the evacuation of town inhabitants by Azerbaijani forces. Armenian government officials asserted that the casualty count, though high, was due to the fact the fleeing civilians in Khojaly had mingled with the retreating defenders and when the Azeri troops shot back, Armenian forces fired upon them, killing both soldier and civilian alike. Helsinki Watch itself concluded "that the militia, still in uniform, and some still carrying their guns, were interspersed with the masses of civilians." However, Human Rights Watch and Memorial, found this explanation unconvincing, stating that the mass killing of civilians could not be justified under any circumstances. Human Rights Watch noted that “the attacking party [i.e., Karabakh Armenian forces] is still obliged to take precautionary measures to avoid or minimize civilian casualties. In particular, the party must suspend an attack if it becomes apparent that the attack may be expected to cause civilian casualties that are excessive in relation to the concrete and direct military advantage anticipated."

The Armenian side oft-referred to Ayaz Mutalibov's interview to claim that the massacre had been committed not by Armenian soldiers but by Azerbaijan Popular Front militants who allegedly shot their own civilians escaping through the corridor. In one of his interviews Mutalibov stated that the event could be a ploy by opposition to denigrate his government. In later interviews, however, Mutalibov would go on to condemn the Armenians for what he said was a misinterpretation of his words. Other theories proposed by the Armenian side were that Azeri Popular Front soldiers had massacred 100 Azeri and Armenian civilians and then proceeded to mix the bodies and lay blame upon the Armenians.

This explanation however is widely disputed, among others, the executive director of Human Rights Watch has stated that: “we place direct responsibility for the civilian deaths with Karabakh Armenian forces. Indeed, neither our report nor that of Memorial includes any evidence to support the argument that Azerbaijani forces obstructed the flight of, or fired on Azeri civilians”.

At the same time, some Armenian sources admitted the guilt of the Armenian side. According to Markar Melkonian, the brother of the Armenian military leader Monte Melkonian, "Khojaly had been a strategic goal, but it had also been an act of revenge." The date of the massacre in Khojaly had a special significance: it was the run-up to the fourth anniversary of the anti-Armenian pogrom in the city of Sumgait which was the Sumgait Massacre. Melkonian particularly mentions the role of the fighters of two Armenian military detachments called the Arabo and Aramo, who stabbed to death many Azeri civilians.

According to Serge Sarkisian, long-time Defense Minister and Chairman of Security Council of Armenia, “A lot was exaggerated” in the casualties, and the fleeing Azerbaijanis had put up armed resistance. At the same time he stated: “before Khojali, the Azerbaijanis thought that they were joking with us, they thought that the Armenians were people who could not raise their hand against the civilian population. We were able to break that [stereotype]. And that's what happened. And we should also take into account that amongst those boys were people who had fled from Baku and Sumgait".

However, there is much indication that the actions of the Karabakh Armenians weren't the actions of a group of people intending to commit a premeditated massacre. Historian Christopher Walker writes "In a controversial action, the Armenians took control of Khojalu in February 1992. Allegations of a massacre of civilian population of the town were made, but several events surrounding its capture were not widely reported: first, the Armenians warned the people of Khojalu that they were planning to take the town, and told them to quit... Secondly, a week after the capture of the town the Armenians invited the Azerbaijanis to claim their dead. Neither of these open actions is characteristic of a group seeking to carry out a massacre."

International reaction
The Khojaly Massacre was described by Human Rights Watch as "the largest massacre to date in the conflict" over Nagorno-Karabakh. Memorial, the Moscow-based human rights group, stated in their report that the mass killing of civilians in Khojaly could not be justified under any circumstances and that actions of Armenian militants were in gross violation of a number of basic international human rights conventions. Estimating the number of the civilians killed in the massacre, Human Rights Watch stated that "there are no exact figures for the number of Azeri civilians killed because Karabakh Armenian forces gained control of the area after the massacre". A 1993 report by Human Rights Watch put the number of deaths at least 161, although later reports state the number of deaths as at least 200. According to Human Rights Watch, "while it is widely accepted that 200 Azeris were murdered, as many as 500-1,000 may have died".

In Written Declaration No. 324, members of the PACE from Albania, Azerbaijan, Turkey and the United Kingdom, along with individual members from Bulgaria, Luxembourg, Macedonia and Norway stated that "On 26 February 1992, Armenians massacred the whole population of Khodjaly and fully destroyed the city", and called on the Assembly to recognize the massacre in Khojaly as part of "genocide perpetrated by Armenians against the Azerbaijani population".

Name
The massacre is also referred to as the Khojaly Genocide and the Khojaly Tragedy by Azerbaijani people and by the government of Azerbaijan. . Armenian government sources use the terms the Battle of Khojaly or the Khojaly event. Western governments and the western media refer to it as the Khojaly Massacre.

Non-partisan

 * Report of Memorial Human rights center (In Russian)
 * Thomas De Waal, Black Garden: Armenia and Azerbaijan through Peace and War, NYU Press, 2004, ISBN 0-8147-1945-7. Chapter 11. August 1991 – May 1992: War Breaks Out. Online (In Russian):

From an Armenian perspective

 * Letter to the UN from Armenia in response to Azeri accusations

From an Azerbaijani perspective

 * Letter to the UN from Azerbaijan condemning the events

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