Kalbajar residents burn homes before Azerbaijan handover

Residents of Kalbajar region of Nagorno-Karabakh were burning their houses before leaving the region that on Sunday will be transferred under the control of Azerbaijan. Kalbajar is situated in the north western part of Nagorno-Karabakh and has been under the control of ethnic Armenian forces backed by Armenia since 1994.

Under the ceasefire agreement signed by Azerbaijan, Armenia and Russia on Tuesday, Azerbaijan will regain control of the Kalbajar region from November 15. Garo Dadevusyan and his family have spent 21 years in Kalbajar, raising children there. Now they are collecting their belongings to leave for good. Garo said he will set fire to his house to prevent it from going into the hands of ethnic Azerbaijanians.

"We are homeless now, do not know where to go and where to live. Do not know where to live. It is very hard." said Garo's wife through tears looking at the empty house.

"In the end, we will blow up or put a fire (to the house) not to leave anything to Muslims," Garo said.

Armenia and Azerbaijan have been locked in a conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh for decades. Heavy fighting that flared up on September 27 marked the biggest escalation in over a quarter-century, killing hundreds and possibly thousands of people. The peace agreement calls for Armenian forces to turn over control of some areas it held outside the borders of Nagorno-Karabakh, including the eastern district of Agdam before December 1.

Azerbaijan authorities announced a plan to gradually return Azerbaijani internally displaced peoples to the settlements they were forced to leave following the war in the 1990s. By the estimates of the United nations around five hundred thousand Azerbaijanis have fled Nagorno-Karabakh since 1994, 60 thousand from the Kalbajar region. 

(Image Credits: AP)