Some 50 Armenians Killed or Missing in Karabakh in 4 Days

About 50 people were killed on the Armenian side, over 100 were injured during the four days of fighting in the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region, according to an adviser to the self-proclaimed Nagorno-Karabakh Republic’s permanent mission to Russia.

MOSCOW (Sputnik) — About 50 Armenian nationals were killed or went missing during the four days of fighting in the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region, an adviser to the self-proclaimed Nagorno-Karabakh Republic’s permanent mission to Russia said Wednesday.

The violence escalated in the mountainous region on Friday. On Tuesday, after almost four days of intense clashes, Azerbaijan and Armenia agreed on an immediate ceasefire in Nagorno-Karabakh.

"In four days, about 50 people were killed on the Armenian side, over 100 were injured. Out of those killed, whom I call killed, about 26 are missing. In fact, of course, they are killed," Arsen Melik-Shakhnazarov told a press conference.

According to Melik-Shakhnazarov, over 300 Azerbaijani troops were killed and over 1,000 were wounded during the same period.

Nagorno-Karabakh lies within Azerbaijan but is controlled by ethnic Armenians. The conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh began in 1988, when the Armenian-dominated autonomous region sought to secede from the Azerbaijan Soviet Socialist Republic, before proclaiming independence after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. The warring sides agreed to a cessation of hostilities in 1994.