SOS Alert – Artsakh

25/09/2023

The Lemkin Institute for Genocide Prevention is issuing an SOS for the Armenians of Artsakh, who are currently being attacked by the genocidal regime of Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev.

Residents of Artsakh are now facing not only starvation and related medical emergencies after a 9-month siege by Azerbaijan, but also immediate death from airstrikes, drones strikes and the mass shelling of civilian areas. Azerbaijan’s military attack came only one day after the country was finally forced to allow into the enclave the first aid shipment since June 15, 2023.

At this moment in time, it is imperative that powerful leaders and states stand up to Azerbaijan and demonstrate clearly that any further aggression against Armenians will not be tolerated and will be met with all available options within the genocide prevention toolbox. Failure to do so will result in these leaders and states being responsible for complicity in genocide.

Failure to stand up to Azerbaijan could also result in an escalation that leads not only to the total destruction of the Armenians of Artsakh but also to a wider war in the region as Azerbaijan and its ally Turkey pursue territorial ambitions in southern Armenia and northern Iran.

There is no doubt in the minds of experts in genocide prevention – at the Lemkin Institute, but also at Genocide Watch, the International Association of Genocide Scholars, and among legal experts such as former ICC chief prosecutor Luis Moreno Ocampo – that what Armenians are facing from Azerbaijan is genocide.

We express our heartfelt solidarity with the people of Artsakh, whose identity and whose lives matter and must be protected.

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