23 years since pogroms of Armenians in Sumgait

23 years ago, February 27, 1988, Azerbaijan’s leadership started mass extermination of Armenian population in Sumgait, accompanied by robbery and destruction of property of Armenians.

With the USSR leadership keeping silent, ethnic cleansings of three days wounded, tortured dozens of people, 53 people were killed, part of them were barbarically tormented and their bodies were burnt.

The Soviet Army entered Sumgait on February 29, however, it did nothing to defend the peaceful Armenian population. The Azeri monster managed to do its black deed…

The massacre of the Armenian population in Sumgait was the first ethnic cleansing in the modern USSR history and played a great part in the collapse of the USSR, as well as in triggering the Nagorno Karabakh war.

The concealment of the fact of genocide in Sumgait and the misinformation of the international community resulted in Azerbaijani leadership’s keeping aggressive anti-Armenian propaganda which led to ethnic cleansings in Baku in 1990 when hundreds of peaceful Armenians were killed. Mass ethnic cleansings of Armenians committed by Azerbaijan’s leadership in 1988-1990 resulted in banishment of the whole Armenian community from Azerbaijan, at least half a million people.

The pogroms were nothing else but a response to peaceful demonstrations of Nagorno Karabakh’s Armenian population who demanded realization of their constitutional right to self-determination.

Azerbaijan’s authorities have never condemned mass pogroms in Sumgait and never regretted for ethnic cleansings, including killings of Armenians in Nagorno Karabakh. On the contrary, Azerbaijan presents itself as a “victim,” grossly falsifying the facts, and the criminals having committed genocide against Armenians have not been punished so far.

A march will be held in Yerevan today on the initiative of the Youth Foundation of Armenia to commemorate the pogroms of February 28, 1988. Participants of the march will head to the UN House in Yerevan, as well as will give foreign embassies in Yerevan a statement condemning the pogroms of 1988-90.