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Photos: Fighting erupts in troubled Nagorno-Karabakh region

Dozens of people have been reported killed and more than 200 wounded in the fighting, which broke out on Tuesday.

Nagorno-Karabakh region
A girl embraces a relative in a shelter during shelling in Stepanakert, Nagorno-Karabakh. [Siranush Sargsyan/AP Photo]
Published On 20 Sep 2023

Azerbaijan’s launch of reportedly intense artillery fire in the Nagorno-Karabakh region on Tuesday raised fears that another full-scale conflict with Armenia could be under way, less than three years after a war that killed more than 6,000 people there.

Nagorno-Karabakh, with a population of about 120,000, is an ethnic Armenian region of Azerbaijan that has been a flashpoint since the collapse of the Soviet Union.

The region and sizable surrounding territories came under the control of ethnic Armenian forces backed by the Armenian military at the 1994 end of a separatist war.

Azerbaijan regained the territories and parts of Nagorno-Karabakh itself in fighting in 2020.

The latter war ended with an agreement to deploy Russian peacekeepers in the region, but tensions have soared since December when Azerbaijan began blocking a road that connects Nagorno-Karabakh with Armenia proper.

The artillery firing that Azerbaijan calls an “anti-terrorist operation” started hours after it said four soldiers and two civilians were killed by landmines that it said were planted by Armenian saboteurs.

Nagorno-Karabakh region
Azerbaijan pounded Nagorno-Karabakh with artillery on September 20, 2023. [EPA]
Nagorno-Karabakh region
An Azerbaijani checkpoint sits at the entry of the Lachin corridor, the Armenian-populated breakaway Nagorno-Karabakh region's only land link with Armenia. [Karen Minasyan/AFP]
Nagorno-Karabakh region
Children sleep in a shelter during shelling in Stepanakert in Nagorno-Karabakh. [Siranush Sargsyan/AP Photo]
Nagorno-Karabakh region
Azerbaijan began its "anti-terrorist" operation on September 19, 2023, in Nagorno-Karabakh after it says some of its soldiers came under attack and were killed in the mountainous region. [EPA]
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Protesters gather near a government building after Azerbaijan launched its military operation in Nagorno-Karabakh. [Vahram Baghdasaryan/Photolure/Reuters]
Nagorno-Karabakh region
Ethnic Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh say Azerbaijan has started a new war against the 120,000 people living in an area they consider their homeland. [EPA]
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Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh, known by Armenians as Artsakh, say fighting is continuing with varying intensity. [Siranush Sargsyan/AP Photo]
Nagorno-Karabakh region
A residential apartment building is damaged after shelling in Stepanakert in the breakaway territory of Nagorno-Karabakh in Azerbaijan. [AP Photo]
Nagorno-Karabakh region
Protesters block a road near a government building after Azerbaijan launched a military operation in Nagorno-Karabakh. [Vahram Baghdasaryan/Photolure/Reuters]
Nagorno-Karabakh region
Azerbaijan says its intention is to "disarm and secure the withdrawal of formations of Armenia's armed forces from our territories, neutralise their military infrastructure". [EPA]