Friday, August 30 2024 15:40

ArmInfo.Tens of thousands of people were going hungry - but the International Red Cross faced  growing obstacles as it tried to deliver help. Among them was hostile rhetoric from the Azerbaijan Red Crescent, a local member of the Red Cross movement.

In February 2023, Ani Mangasaryan was watching her city die. She was  terrified that her baby would die with it.

Nagorno-Karabakh, an isolated and contested region deep in  Azerbaijani territory, was still in Armenian hands. But it had been  under blockade for several months. Meat and fresh produce had  vanished from the shelves in the capital city, Stepanakert. In the  corridor of the children's hospital, Mangasaryan's son lay feverish  with a lung infection.

"My child should really be in the intensive care unit, but there's no  space," she told a reporter present at the scene, pacing nervously  back and forth. She paused only to press her hand against the baby's  hot forehead.

The doctors were feeling desperate as well. "We've had to cancel four  operations so far," said pediatric surgeon Mari Grigoryan, rushing  between overcrowded wards. "These children are suffering greatly."

There was occasional relief. The hospital had just managed to  evacuate an ailing four-month-old infant to Armenia with the help of  the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) - virtually the  only humanitarian organization still able to move supplies into  Nagorno-Karabakh, or get people out.

But Grigoryan said it wasn't nearly enough. "The Red Cross's  humanitarian aid is good. But it only covers a fraction of our  needs," she said.

In February 2023, Ani Mangasaryan was watching her city die. She was  terrified that her baby would die with it.

Nagorno-Karabakh, an isolated and contested region deep in  Azerbaijani territory, was still in Armenian hands. But it had been  under blockade for several months. Meat and fresh produce had  vanished from the shelves in the capital city, Stepanakert. In the  corridor of the children's hospital, Mangasaryan's son lay feverish  with a lung infection.

"My child should really be in the intensive care unit, but there's no  space," she told a reporter present at the scene, pacing nervously  back and forth. She paused only to press her hand against the baby's  hot forehead.

The doctors were feeling desperate as well. "We've had to cancel four  operations so far," said pediatric surgeon Mari Grigoryan, rushing  between overcrowded wards. "These children are suffering greatly."

There was occasional relief. The hospital had just managed to  evacuate an ailing four-month-old infant to Armenia with the help of  the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) - virtually the  only humanitarian organization still able to move supplies into  Nagorno-Karabakh, or get people out.

But Grigoryan said it wasn't nearly enough. "The Red Cross's  humanitarian aid is good. But it only covers a fraction of our  needs," she said.

The Azerbaijan Red Crescent is deeply enmeshed with the authoritarian  regime of President Ilham Aliyev, who in more than 20 years of rule  has left Azerbaijan near the bottom of human rights and democracy  rankings. But the organization has never faced serious scrutiny of  the kind undergone by its equivalents in countries like Belarus,  where the local Red Cross's membership in the IFRC was suspended last  year after it was found to have violated the movement's fundamental  principles.

Melanie O'Brien, an expert in international humanitarian law and an  associate professor at the University of Western Australia's School  of Law, reviewed reporters' findings. She said that, as a signatory  of the Geneva Conventions, Azerbaijan was obligated to allow the ICRC  to do its work unhindered.

"All parties have agreed to the ICRC's presence in Nagorno-Karabakh,  and therefore it is concerning that a state was hindering their  work," she said. 

Of the actions taken by the Azerbaijan Red Crescent, she added:  "Based on the information I have seen, and if it is true, these are  very serious alleged violations of the [Red Cross movement's]  fundamental principles."

In response to requests for comment, both the ICRC and IFRC provided  statements that stressed the importance of the Red Cross movement's  fundamental principles and the urgency of the work. 

Neither criticized the Azerbaijani government, with the ICRC noting  that the organization's commitment to "reaching vulnerable people" in  the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict meant "working with relevant  authorities to gain access to people who needed humanitarian  assistance, including medical evacuations."

"The diplomacy and coordination it takes to reach people affected by  conflict is done through bilateral dialogue," the ICRC statement  continued. "Years of practice have shown us this is the most  effective way to carry out our work."

Neither the ICRC nor the IFRC directly addressed the question of  whether the Azerbaijan Red Crescent had violated the Red Cross  movement's principles. 

"The ICRC and the [IFRC] take alleged violations of the fundamental  principles very seriously," the ICRC wrote. "The IFRC works directly  with its members, the national societies, to address issues or take  further measures as necessary in close coordination with the ICRC."

The IFRC wrote that it had "engaged in a dialogue with the Azerbaijan  Red Crescent Society at a high leadership level, in a fast-changing  political landscape." 

"Neutrality is critical in every context, even more so during a  conflict," the IFRC said. "Every National Red Cross Red Crescent  Society needs to follow the Fundamental Principles and refrain from  engaging in controversies of political nature."

The Azerbaijani presidential administration and foreign ministry did  not respond to requests for comment.  The head of the Azerbaijan Red  Crescent, Novruz Aslanov, did not respond to requests sent through  the organization's public email addresses and through his assistant.

The Stage for a Tragedy

In Azerbaijani and other regional languages, Karabakh means "Black  Garden" - an appropriate name for this highly-contested southern  stretch of the Caucasus Mountains, its valleys dotted with lush  forests and rivers.

Though historically home to both Azeris and Armenians, the territory  was awarded to Azerbaijan by Joseph Stalin after both countries fell  under Soviet rule. The conflict was thus tamped down for 70 years,  only to erupt anew as they regained their independence.

In the First Nagorno-Karabakh War of the 1990s, hundreds of thousands  were displaced and many killed on both sides. But Armenian forces won  a decisive victory, resulting in a self-governing Armenian state on  territory that was internationally recognized as Azerbaijani. This  contradictory situation became the subject of prolonged peace  negotiations under the Organization for Security and Cooperation in  Europe.

In the end, the talks proved futile. President Aliyev, having  fortified his military with drones, heavy artillery, and advanced  technology purchased on the back of brisk oil sales, launched an  offensive in 2020 that easily brushed aside Armenian defenses. His  forces reclaimed most of Nagorno-Karabakh's territory, including its  historic second city. 

What remained in Armenian hands was an isolated enclave centered  around Stepanakert (known in Azeri as Khankendi), its population fed  and supplied by a single active road that wound its way through the  mountains. This tenuous lifeline, known as the Lachin Corridor, was  guarded by Russian peacekeepers who often seemed to defer to  Azerbaijani demands.

The situation persisted for the next two years, during which the Red  Cross's humanitarian efforts grew in scale and complexity. The annual  budget of the ICRC's longstanding Nagorno-Karabakh mission more than  quadrupled, to around $48 million. By 2023, it had as many as 75  employees in the territory and hundreds more outside of it, handling  everything from mine clearance to prisoner exchanges. But the biggest  challenge was yet to come.

The Noose Tightens

In December 2022, Azerbaijan allowed a group of government-backed  environmental activists to impose a blockade of the Lachin Corridor,  ostensibly to protest damage wrought by ore mining on the territory.  For the first time, Nagorno-Karabakh was almost completely sealed off  from the outside world.

Facing new geopolitical challenges in the South Caucasus after its  invasion of Ukraine, and perhaps unwilling to manage another hotspot,  Moscow did not order its peacekeepers to remove the blockade. And  though the peacekeepers continued to deliver food, at least for a  time, it wasn't nearly enough.

The situation was especially dire for the ill. As hospital supplies  dried up, the ICRC organized humanitarian convoys to evacuate the  neediest patients to Armenia along the Lachin Corridor.

Azerbaijan's responsibility to keep this path open was enshrined in a  February ruling by the International Court of Justice in the Hague,  which was reaffirmed a few months later. But though the court  decisions instructed Azerbaijan to ensure "unimpeded movement : in  both directions," in practice the ICRC's capacity to transport  patients fell far short of demand.

"We applied to the ICRC for his transfer," one Stepanakert resident  told the human rights watchdog Freedom House, explaining that a  family member with a stomach tumor needed immediate evacuation.   "There were many patients waiting. ... He died before his turn came."

Reporters obtained data about how many people the ICRC's convoys were  able to evacuate on a day-to-day basis, which the organization had  shared with the Nagorno-Karabakh government. 

The data shows the transfers sometimes halted entirely. These periods  correspond to the episodes of heightened Azerbaijani pressure  described by the ICRC employee.

In late April, for example, the ICRC convoys were halted for five  days while an official Azerbaijani checkpoint was built on the Hakari  Bridge, at the Armenian end of the Lachin Corridor. The environmental  activists were replaced by border guards.

After another week, the transports stopped again - this time for  nearly a month - as Azerbaijan made new demands, including requiring  advance copies of the passports of every passenger who would ride in  a Red Cross medical convoy.

On June 15, after a clash between Azerbaijani soldiers and Armenian  border guards on the bridge, Azerbaijan closed off the route for  everyone. 

The closure threatened the existence of the corridor itself. While  ICRC transports were allowed to resume a few days later, regular  Russian food deliveries never again reached Nagorno-Karabakh. Even  the peacekeepers had to use helicopters to keep themselves supplied.

The ICRC did its best to step up and deliver at least some aid, the  organization's employee said. But the mission had only a few trucks  it could use, and these were not generally allowed to carry fuel into  Nagorno- Karabakh, even for the ICRC's own needs. The organization  resorted to bringing in fuel "discreetly," without the Azerbaijanis'  permission.

"We shared 1,000-1,500 liters with the ambulance service of  Stepanakert, and they shared with the regions [outside the city],"  the employee said. "Sometimes we donated fuel to the hospital because  there was a blackout, and they needed to run a generator." (This  account was confirmed by hospital employees.)

As the situation deteriorated, the ICRC hired commercial trucks to  try to bring in additional supplies. But some of the drivers were  caught smuggling cigarettes and other goods to be sold for their own  personal profit, prompting Azerbaijan to crack down. "Every day they  [were] accusing the ICRC that we are smugglers," the employee said.  The commercial trucking scheme was abandoned.

Seven months into the siege, at the end of July, the ICRC issued a  rare public statement declaring that it was no longer able to bring  in any supplies at all. The text was careful to assign no blame,  addressing only "the relevant decision-makers" in its request to  "allow the ICRC to resume its essential humanitarian operations."

"It takes a lot for the ICRC to speak out publicly," said O'Brien,  the humanitarian law expert. "They won't do it unless the situation  has come to an impasse."

As essential inbound supplies ground to a halt, emergency evacuations  also faced growing challenges. Just days after the ICRC statement, a  68-year-old patient on a medical convoy was arrested by Azerbaijani  officials for allegedly committing war crimes during the 1990s war.  The incident prompted the ICRC to repeat its plea for "all concerned  decision-makers to respect its strictly humanitarian mission."

"Oh, it was a nightmare," the ICRC employee said. "At that point, we  couldn't guarantee that [passengers] would pass the Hakari Bridge  freely." Many men who were fighting age or had served in the 1990s  war became afraid to use the route; from then on the convoys carried  mostly women and children.

An 'Internal Question'

Around this time, Baku began to make new demands. Instead of the  Lachin Corridor, the Azerbaijani government said, the blockaded  territory should be supplied via another route that linked Nagorno-  Karabakh not to Armenia, but to the Azerbaijani city of Aghdam.

This proposition, frequently aired in public, was also insistently  made to the ICRC mission in private, the ICRC employee said. But for  many in Nagorno-Karabakh, the idea was unacceptable because it would  seem to legitimize the Azerbaijanis' campaign to "integrate" them  into Azerbaijan - and cut off their last link with Armenia.

"If the Aghdam road is open : but the Lachin Corridor remains closed,  we are still in a cage like zoo animals & they just decided to feed  us," tweeted Marut Vanyan, a journalist writing from besieged  Stepanakert. (Vanyan also contributed reporting to this story.)

The ICRC argued that the Lachin road, and its vital lifeline to  Armenia, be kept open. It was then, the employee said, that  Azerbaijani officials began to question the organization's presence  entirely. ICRC colleagues in Baku were told that the crisis was an  "internal question of Azerbaijan," and that there was a local group  perfectly placed to deal with it: the Azerbaijan Red Crescent.

These private discussions could not be independently confirmed, and  the Azerbaijani Red Crescent did not respond to a request for  comment. But in the last weeks of August, Red Crescent officials  themselves made similar arguments in public.

"If the ICRC is having problems carrying out its mission, we're  always ready to help," said the group's chairman Novruz Aslanov in a  lengthy interview with a state media outlet.

He went on to cast doubt on the severity of the crisis in  Nagorno-Karabakh.

"The Armenians are indicating where they want their humanitarian  cargo from, and from what direction it should come," he continued.  "It's strange for people whose children and old people are supposedly  dying of hunger, isn't it?"

In an official statement made the same week, the Red Crescent went  further. "Humanitarian operations in the area where Russian  peacekeepers are temporarily based [are] not within the jurisdiction  of ICRC," the statement read, using a formulaic description that  emphasized Azerbaijan's sovereignty over the territory.  "These  operations are under the responsibility of the Azerbaijan Red  Crescent Society." 

In effect, the Red Crescent was claiming that the ICRC - which had  been working in Nagorno-Karabakh for decades, on a mandate agreed by  all sides - had no right to be there since the territory  unquestionably belonged to Azerbaijan. 

Moreover, the statement went on to claim that there was "no  'humanitarian crisis' in the region." 

Reality on the ground suggested otherwise. That same week, Vanyan,  the local journalist, had tweeted that kindergartens in Stepanakert  were closing for lack of food. His photos from those last days of  August also documented a pharmacy with empty shelves and a bread line  that had stretched so long into the night that people were laying on  the ground to rest.

Meanwhile, even as the ICRC continued to negotiate with the  Azerbaijanis over resuming humanitarian deliveries along the Lachin  Corridor, the Azerbaijan Red Crescent organized a protest by the  Aghdam road, demanding access for itself. 

The protest was joined by Hikmet Hajiyev, President Aliyev's foreign  policy adviser, who tweeted from the scene that the Armenian  government in Nagorno-Karabakh was an "illegal regime [that] must be  dissolved and disarmed."

On September 8, Hajiyev told Reuters that Azerbaijan would open the  Lachin Corridor for ICRC food shipments - but only if the Azerbaijan  Red Crescent was also allowed entry through Aghdam.

'How to Write History in 24 Hours'

Less than two weeks later, the argument became irrelevant.

Azerbaijani troops invaded Nagorno-Karabakh on September 19,  prompting nearly the entire Armenian population of the enclave to  flee to Armenia along the Lachin Corridor. Dozens of people,  exhausted by months of hunger, were reported to have died during the  miserable 30-hour journey. The last outpost of an ancient Armenian  community was no more.

But Red Crescent officials' public statements evinced little concern  for the humanitarian crisis. Instead, they celebrated their  government's actions.   

On September 21, the organization's head Aslanov tweeted a tribute to  Ilham Aliyev - a fake book cover emblazoned with an image of the  leader, with text superimposed over his body: "How To Write History  in 24 Hours."

The next day, Aslanov posted a photo of a Red Crescent convoy in  Nagorno-Karabakh. "Our honorable mission is completed," he wrote.

This wasn't the first time the Azerbaijan Red Crescent has advanced  Azerbaijani government narratives.

When Ilham Aliyev became president in 2003, a title he inherited from  his deceased father Heydar Aliyev, the organization awarded him the  first honorary medal it has ever issued.

Since then, Azerbaijan has lost ground in nearly all measures of  democracy, its prisons periodically filling with dissidents and  journalists and its elections turned into coronations for Aliyev and  his allies. According to researchers from Freedom House, Azerbaijan  now surpasses Belarus as Europe's most repressive state.

Through it all, the Azerbaijan Red Crescent has stuck by the  government's side. 

Aslanov, the organization's president since 1999, is ostensibly an  independent member of parliament. But in Azerbaijan, such  distinctions don't mean much. Last December, he openly urged voters  to support Aliyev in an upcoming presidential election.

So did the Red Crescent's secretary-general, Jeyhun Mirzayev. 

"Ilham Aliyev, the national leader who led Azerbaijan from victory to  victory, deserves to win the election more than anyone else; this is  his full right," Mirzayev said at the organization's official annual  assembly, which took place the same month. 

At the event, Red Crescent members formally voted to endorse Aliyev's  reelection - a decision state media reported as being unanimous.

"The connections with the government, that's in violation of how the  Red Cross works. It's in violation of independence," said O'Brien.  "It's hugely problematic."

The original article can be found here:   https://www.occrp.org/en/feature/we-couldnt-work-properly-how-azerbaijan-obstructed-red-cross-relief- during-the-nagorno-karabakh-siege?fbclid=IwY2xjawE- gOdleHRuA2FlbQIxMAABHW7jtrJXEAvvaDZO8sTsAIq7Q5EMonQZ0BrwCLOnwmzS7lMW3zbLIF- iNg_aem_rKBYYnA1Pb_YI8hpLBCl5A