Occupied Hadrut is undeniable proof of Azerbaijan’s policy of hatred and ethnic cleansing against the Armenian people. This was written on his Facebook page by the Human Rights Defender of Artsakh, Gegham Stepanyan.
“It has already been a year that Azerbaijan has been keeping the entire Hadrut region of the Republic of Artsakh under occupation, which is one of the most important settlements with a permanent Armenian population.
The fact that Hadrut was inhabited exclusively by an Armenian population until Artsakh was annexed to Soviet Azerbaijan is documented in numerous historical sources and materials. The settlements comprising the Hadrut region of the Republic of Artsakh formed the Hadrut district of the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast during the Soviet years, whose population of 15,000 was over 90 percent Armenian according to the 1979 census data.
As a result of the Azerbaijani-Turkish aggression unleashed against the peaceful population of Artsakh in 2020, the Armenian population of the town of Hadrut and the district of the same name was entirely subjected to ethnic cleansing.
The peaceful population of Hadrut, civilian infrastructure and structures of humanitarian significance were subjected to deliberate and indiscriminate strikes by Azerbaijani armed forces from the very first day of the aggression. As a result of the ongoing occupation, the region’s 14,000 residents have been displaced from their homes, lost their movable and immovable property, jobs and entire possessions.
As a consequence of the ethnic cleansing of the Armenian population of Hadrut, the material and non-material cultural values created by Armenians are under threat of destruction and annihilation. More than 500 significant historical-cultural monuments — churches, monasteries, khachkars, shrines — are under immediate threat of destruction. The Azerbaijani authorities are desecrating at the highest level the spiritual-cultural values created by the region’s indigenous Armenian population.
Research by Armenian and international organizations dealing with the preservation of cultural values testifies that in all settlements of Hadrut, Armenian cemeteries are being demolished and destroyed, and tombstones are being used as building material for constructing roads.
As a result of the ethnic cleansing of the Armenian population, community life and traditions have been disrupted in all settlements of the region; due to the dispersion of the displaced population, the Hadrut dialect, which has been preserved as original and unique among Armenian dialects, is endangered,” wrote Stepanyan.
