Lachine Corridor Blocked: UN Armenia has called for a special session of the Security Council

Lachin’s corridor was blocked
Armenia has called for a special session of the UN Security Council

08/12/2023 9:13 pm

Yerevan sees the people of Nagorno-Karabakh facing a humanitarian disaster. The reason was the closure of the Lachin Corridor through Azerbaijan, resulting in “severe shortages” of food, medicine, gas and fuel.

The UN is considering the blockade of the only road link between Armenia and the disputed Caucasus region of Nagorno-Karabakh. Yerevan has called for a special session of the Security Council. The people of Nagorno-Karabakh are “on the brink of a real humanitarian catastrophe,” Armenia’s UN ambassador Mer Markarian said in a letter to the most powerful UN body.

Azerbaijan closed the so-called Lachin Corridor in July. According to Markarian, the blockade has now led to “severe shortages” of food, medicine, gas and fuel.

The Lachin corridor was initially blocked by Azerbaijani demonstrators posing as environmentalists. Baku later set up a roadblock at the link entrance citing security reasons, and traffic there has been paralyzed ever since.

The area is mostly inhabited by Armenians

Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, there have been conflicts in the predominantly Armenian region of Armenia and Azerbaijan. Two wars have already killed thousands in what the international community considers part of Azerbaijan.

After six weeks of fighting that killed more than 6,500 people in 2020, Russia brokered a ceasefire that forced Armenia to cede large swaths of territory. Since then, there have been violent clashes along the Armenian-Azerbaijani border.

Regarding the current situation in Nagorno-Karabakh, Armenia’s UN Ambassador Margarian wrote in a letter to the Security Council that it had led to “increased mortality” among people already suffering from diabetes and cardiovascular diseases.

Azerbaijan is “deliberately” creating “intolerable conditions” for the people of the enclave and committing “mass atrocities” to force residents to emigrate. UN The Security Council, “as the most important body of international security,” should intervene, Markarian wrote.