Nagorno-Karabakh: Most people have left enclave for Armenia as Azerbaijan retakes control
A mass exodus of ethnic Armenians from Nagorno-Karabakh has virtually emptied the breakaway territory after Azerbaijan took back control in a military operation.
More than 100,000 have now fled to Armenia from the disputed region, which had a population of around 120,000 before Baku launched the successful lightning offensive, according to the UN refugee agency (UNHCR).
The number of vehicles to cross the Hakari Bridge, which links Armenia to Nagorno-Karabakh, since last week has topped 21,000.
Three decades of conflict in the region has fuelled suspicion on both sides. Pic: AP
Some families were forced to queue for days because the winding mountain road that is the only route out became jammed with traffic.
Meanwhile, Armenia has asked the EU for temporary shelters and medical supplies to cope with the influx, Italy has said.
The flight of more than 80% of Nagorno-Karabakh’s population has raised questions about Azerbaijan’s plans for the enclave that was internationally recognised as part of its territory, but which had been run by an ethnic Armenian breakaway state since the 1990s.
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Nagorno-Karabakh refugees arrive in Armenia
Armenia’s Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan has claimed the large-scale evacuation amounted to “a direct act of an ethnic cleansing and depriving people of their motherland”.
But Azerbaijan has rejected the accusation, arguing the mass migration by the region’s residents was “their personal and individual decision and has nothing to do with forced relocation”.
Many ethnic Armenians fled because they do not trust the Baku government. Pic: AP
During three decades of conflict in the region, Azerbaijan and the separatists backed by Armenia have accused each other of targeted attacks, massacres and other atrocities, fuelling suspicion and fear on both sides.
While Azerbaijan has pledged to respect the rights of ethnic Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh, many are fleeing because they do not trust the Baku government to treat them properly or guarantee their language, religion and culture.
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Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev has said his “iron fist” had consigned the idea of an independent ethnic Armenian Karabakh to history.
After six years of separatist fighting ended in 1994 following the collapse of the Soviet Union, Nagorno-Karabakh came under the control of ethnic Armenian forces, backed by Armenia.
Then, during a six-week war in 2020, Azerbaijan took back parts of the region in the south Caucasus Mountains along with surrounding territory that Armenian forces had claimed earlier.
Armenia has asked the EU for assistance to cope with the influx. Pic: AP
In December, Azerbaijan blocked the Lachin Corridor, the only road connecting Nagorno-Karabakh with Armenia, accusing the Armenian government of using it for illicit weapons shipments to the region’s separatist forces.
Weakened by the blockade and with Armenia’s leadership distancing itself from the conflict, ethnic Armenian forces in the region agreed to lay down arms less than 24 hours after Azerbaijan began its offensive.
Talks have begun between officials in the Azerbaijani capital of Baku and Nagorno-Karabakh’s separatist authorities on “reintegrating” the region into Azerbaijan.
The twin threats of climate change and Russian malign activity in the Arctic must be taken “deadly seriously,” David Lammy has warned.
Sky News joined him on the furthest reaching tour of the Arctic by a British foreign secretary.
We travelled to Svalbard – a Norwegian archipelago that is the most northern settled land on Earth, 400 miles from the North Pole.
It is at the heart of an Arctic region facing growing geopolitical tension and feeling the brunt of climate change.
Mr Lammy told us the geopolitics of the region must be taken “deadly seriously” due to climate change and “the threats we’re seeing from Russia”.
We witnessed the direct impact of climate change along Svalbard’s coastline and inland waterways. There is less ice, we were told, compared to the past.
David Lammy and Norway’s Foreign Minister Barth Eide view the melting Blomstrandbreen glacier. Pic: PA
The melting ice is opening up the Arctic and allowing Russia more freedom to manoeuvre.
“We do see Russia’s shadow fleet using these waters,” Mr Lammy said. “We do see increased activity from submarines with nuclear capability under our waters and we do see hybrid sabotage of undersea cables at this time.”
In Tromso, further south, the foreign secretary was briefed by Norwegian military commanders.
The foreign secretary visiting SvalSat, a satellite ground station which monitors climate in Svalbard. Pic: PA
Vice Admiral Rune Andersen, the Chief of Norwegian Joint Headquarters, told Sky News the Russian threat was explicit.
“Russia has stated that they are in confrontation with the West and are utilising a lot of hybrid methods to undermine Western security,” he said.
But it’s not just Vladimir Putin they’re worried about. Norwegian observers are concerned by US president Donald Trump’s strange relationship with the Russian leader too.
Norwegian observers are concerned about the Russian leader – and Trump being ‘too soft’ on him. Pic: AP
Karsten Friis, a Norwegian defence and security analyst, told Sky News: “If he’s too soft on Putin, if he is kind of normalising relations with Russia, I wouldn’t be surprised.
“I would expect Russia to push us, to test us, to push borders, to see what we can do as Europeans.”
Changes in the Arctic mean new challenges for the NATO military alliance – including stepping up activity to deter threats, most of all from Russia.
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In Iceland, we toured a NATO airbase with the foreign secretary.
There, he said maintaining robust presence in the Arctic was essential for western security.
“Let’s be clear, in this challenging geopolitical moment the high north and the Arctic is a heavily contested arena and we should be under no doubt that NATO and the UK need to protect it for our own national security.”
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This is also about distracting Russia, drawing away resources that could have been used in the war in Ukraine and deterring it in the future.
Because the more Arctic opens up, the more this once pristine wilderness is becoming the arena of national rivalry and potentially conflict.
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‘What did they do to be burned and bombed?’: Charity calls on UK to offer Gaza children life-saving treatment
A British charity has written to the prime minister and foreign secretary, urging them to allow seriously ill children from Gaza into the UK to receive life-saving medical treatment.
Warning: This article contains images readers may find distressing
The co-founder of Project Pure Hope told Sky News it was way past the time for words.
“Now, we need action,” Omar Dinn said.
He’s identified two children inside Gaza who urgently need help and is appealing to the UK government to issue visas as a matter of urgency.
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Britain has taken only two patients from Gaza for medical treatment in 20 months of Israeli bombardment.
Children are among the bulk of the casualties in Gaza
“Most of the people affected by this catastrophe that’s unfolding in Gaza are children,” he continued. “And children are the most vulnerable.
“They have nothing to do with the politics, and we really just need to see them for what they are.
“They are children, just like my children, just like everybody’s children in this country – and we have the ability to help them.”
Sky News has been sent video blogs from British surgeons working in Gaza right now which show the conditions and difficulties they’re working under.
They prepare for potential immediate evacuation whilst facing long lists, mainly of children, needing life-saving emergency treatment day after day.
Dr Victoria Rose is a British surgeon working in southern Gaza’s last remaining hospital
Dr Victoria Rose told us: “Every time I come, I say it’s really bad, but this is on a completely different scale now. It’s mass casualties. It’s utter carnage.
“We are incapable of getting through this volume. We don’t have the personnel. We don’t have the medical supplies. And we really don’t have the facilities.
“We are the last standing hospital in the south of Gaza. We really are on our knees now.”
One of her patients is three-year-old Hatem, who was badly burned when an Israeli airstrike hit the family apartment.
Karam, aged one, has a birth defect that could be easily fixed with surgery
His pregnant mother and father were both killed, leaving him an orphan. He has 35 percent burns on his small body.
“It’s a massive burn for a little guy like this,” Dr Rose says. “He’s so adorable. His eyelids are burnt. His hands are burnt. His feet are burnt.”
Hatem’s grandfather barely leaves his hospital bedside. Hatem Senior told us: “What did these children do wrong to suffer such injuries? To be burned and bombed? We ask God to grant them healing.”
Hatem Senior
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The second child identified by the charity is Karam, who, aged one, is trying to survive in a tent in deeply unhygienic surroundings with a protruding intestine.
He’s suffering from a birth defect called Hirschsprung disease, which could be easily operated on with the right skills and equipment – unavailable to him in Gaza right now.
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Karam, aged one, has a birth defect that could be easily fixed with surgery
Karam’s mother Manal told our Gaza camera crew: “No matter how much I describe how much my son is suffering, I wouldn’t be able to describe it enough. I swear I am constantly crying.”
Children are among the bulk of casualties – some 16,000 have been killed, according to the latest figures from local health officials – and make up the majority of those being operated on, according to the British surgical team on the ground.
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