YEREVAN (Armenpress) — According to the Executive Director of the NGO Against Illegal Arbitrariness Larisa Alaverdyan during a press conference, the events years ago in Sumgait, Baku, and other Armenian-populated regions was a state sponsored program.
“Today, considering the existing numerous facts, we can document that the Sumgait massacres had been planned in advance. Mass slaughter of Armenians and forced deportation were carried out. Armenians were intimidated for days. Similar operations were carried out in over 300 settlements with Armenian population,” ALaverdyan said, stating that oppression of Armenians had started already in 1988.
There was a period when 331 Armenians were slaughtered in a day. Alaverdyan mentioned that Azerbaijan continued its genocidal policy embraced in 1918 and in some sense even surpassed Turkey. In comparison to Turkey where there are Armenian churches, schools, and members of parliament, none of these exist in Azerbaijan.
Meanwhile, the Director of the Ahazang (Alert) NGO Julieta Yeremyants emphasized that Azerbaijani official data states that about 3 dozens of victims, when in reality there were hundreds of victims.
“I regret that the world did not give a proper assessment to theSumgait incidents. If the Sumgait incidents were condemned on site, neither Ganja, nor Baku incidents would have taken place. I am from Ganja. Operations started also in Ganja during Sumgait incidents. Electricity and telephones were off in order to cut any contact with outside world. We learned on March 3 about what had happened in Sumgait, and immediately the squads formed by the government attacked Armenians of Ganja. It was an unexpected attack but Armenians of Ganja formed a group and organized self-defense,” Yeremyants said.
She recalls how Azerbaijani officials used to arrive in Ganja and conduct anti-Armenian hate propaganda prior to the attacks, saying that they are not going to give the beautiful Karabakh to Armenians.
She says that 45 thousand Armenians lived in Ganja who were considered as newcomers, expressing resentment over the fact that after living there for 200 years, they are considered newcomers, while those, who arrived a day before, are taken as natives.
According to Yeremyants, 360 Armenians fled Azerbaijan to Armenia, but at that time over 800 thousand Armenians lived in Azerbaijan. Currently, they have spread all over the world.
