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11
KHOJALY GENOCIDE
were forced to leave Armenia. By special deci-
sions of the USSR Council of Ministers, adopted
on 23 December 1947 and 10 March 1948, more
than 150,000Azerbaijanis were forced to move to
Azerbaijan from their historical homelands in Ar-
menia in the period from 1948 to 1953.
At the end of 1987, theArmenian SSR openly
laid claim to the territory of the Nagorno-Kara-
bakh Autonomous Oblast (NKAO) of the Azer-
baijan SSR. Then began further expulsions of
Azerbaijanis from the Armenian SSR and the
NKAO. A number of unlawful decisions were
taken by both Armenia and the Armenian com-
munity in Nagorno-Karabakh to institute a pro-
cess of unilateral secession of the region from
Azerbaijan.
On 22 February 1988 near the settlement of
Askeran on the Khankendi-Aghdam highway,
theArmenian nationalists opened fire on a peace-
ful Azerbaijani demonstration. Two Azerbaijani
youths lost their lives in consequence, becoming
the first victims of the conflict.
Shortly after the assertion of claims on Na-
gorno-Karabakh, the Armenian authorities is-
sued instructions that resulted in about 250,000
Azerbaijanis being forcibly deported from their
homes in Armenia. The process of deportation
was accompanied by widespread and systematic
killings, torture, destruction of property and pil-
laging throughout Armenia. In total, 216Azerbai-
janis were killed in Armenia during 1987-1989,
including children, women and elderly people.
Long before the world witnessed the hor-
rifying terrorist attacks that took place on 11
September, 2001 and afterwards in different
countries, Armenian security agencies and ter-
rorist organizations were perpetrating terrorist
acts within Azerbaijan, targeting civilian facili-
ties, including industrial units and means of air,
sea and land transportation. Such acts took the
lives of over 2,000 Azerbaijanis from the late
1980s, the majority of them women, elderly
and children.
Shortly after the Soviet Union ceased to exist
at the end of 1991 and both Armenia and Azer-
baijan were accorded international recognition,
armed hostilities and Armenian attacks on Azer-
baijan intensified. Armenia unleashed the war,
used force against Azerbaijan and occupied its
territories, including the Nagorno-Karabakh re-
gion and seven adjacent districts. It conducted
ethnic cleansing of the areas seized, expelling
about one million Azerbaijanis from their land
of origin, and committed other serious crimes
during the conflict. Finally, it established a sub-