Artsakh MFA: Massacre of residents of Maraga settlement is one of the  most tragic episodes of Azeri aggression against Artsakh

ArmInfo.The massacre of the residents of the Maraga settlement of the Mardakert region of the Artsakh Republic, committed by the Azerbaijani army on April 10,  1992, is one of the most tragic episodes of Azeri aggression against Artsakh. This is stated in the comments of the Office of Information and Public Relations of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Artsakh Republic.

According to the source, after a long shelling, Azeri armed units  invaded the village of Maraga, where 118 people remained, mostly  elderly, disabled, women and children. As a result of the  unprecedented war crimes committed by the Azeri armed forces, more  than 50 people were killed, the rest, including 9 children and 29  women, were taken hostage. Some of them later managed to be returned,  but the fate of 19 hostages remains unknown to this day. The village  was liberated by the armed forces of Artsakh, but after two weeks it  was re-attacked, and the people who returned to bury their relatives  were victims of new outrages of the Azeri army. The attack on the  village, it is said in the commentary, was not due to military  necessity, but was directed, first of all, to massacre its civilians.  "The crime in Maraga was the continuation of a series of Armenian  pogroms and deportations in Sumgait, Baku, Kirovabad and other  settlements of Azerbaijan, as well as in the villages of Northern  Artsakh in 1988-1991, which aimed to strangle the national liberation  struggle of the Artsakh Armenians in the bud and deprive their  homeland through ethnic cleansing and terror against Artsakh and the  Armenian population of Azerbaijan. The impunity of the organizers and  perpetrators of these crimes created a favorable ground for planting  in Azerbaijan as a the state policy, the cult of hatred towards  Armenians and the unbridled propaganda of xenophobia, intolerance and  militarism.  Azeri aggression against Artsakh in April 2016, which  was accompanied by war crimes against civilians and soldiers of the  Defense Army, demonstrated that the methods and approaches of the  Azeri side remained unchanged", notes the comment of the Office of  the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Artsakh.