The international human rights organization Freedom House has condemned Azerbaijan’s disruption of the gas supply to Artsakh. The organization made a statement on its Twitter page.
“Azerbaijan must prevent a humanitarian crisis by restoring uninterrupted gas supplies to the population of Nagorno-Karabakh, who have been suffering for weeks in the cold, without heating or hot water,” the statement said.
Gas supplies were halted following an accident on the gas pipeline near Shushi, in an area that came under Azerbaijani control on March 8 in the territory of Artsakh. The Azerbaijani side for days did not allow access to the accident site to repair the pipeline. The absence of gas created numerous problems for the population of Artsakh. On March 18, the completion of repair work on the pipeline was reported, and gas supplies were restored the following day. However, later the Artsakh information headquarters issued a statement saying that gas supplies to Artsakh had again been halted as a result of Azerbaijan’s direct intervention. The statement notes that there are grounds to believe that during the repair of the pipeline, Azerbaijan installed a valve on it, through which it halted the gas supply.
