Woman from Nagorno-Karabakh complains about treatment in Azerbaijani captivity

Yevgenia Babayan, an 85-year-old resident of Gadrut, has stated that she had been forcibly taken from her home by Azerbaijani militaries to Baku, where she was subjected to inhuman treatment.

The "Caucasian Knot" has reported that in the morning on October 26, a new agreement on a humanitarian truce in the Karabakh conflict zone entered into force, but already during the first hours after, the parties exchanged accusations of violating the truce. On October 30, the heads of Ministries of Foreign Affairs (MFAs) of Armenia and Azerbaijan agreed, at their meeting in Geneva, not to attack peaceful dwelling settlements.

The Investigating Committee of Armenia has released a video, in which Ms Babayan told about her stay in Azerbaijani captivity. According to the elderly woman, she was born and lived all her life in the city of Gadrut. At night on October 16, when the city was shelled, she went down into the basement. In the morning, when she went out to feed her chickens, she heard male voices.

"About ten men, who spoke the Azerbaijani language, occupied my house. I got scared and fell down; the Azerbaijanis came up to me, pulled my hand and said that they would take me to Baku," the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent has translated Ms Babayan's story.

In Baku, the woman was taken to three police stations. "I was treated badly, like an animal, like a dog," she said. In one of the stations, according to Babayan, she was demanded to state to the video camera that the war had been started by the Prime Minister of Armenia, Nikol Pashinyan.

For ten days, Yevgenia Babayan stayed in hospital, and then she was transported to Armenia via Georgia and through the mediation of the Red Cross.

This article was originally published on the Russian page of 24/7 Internet agency ‘Caucasian Knot’ on October 31, 2020 at 05:50 pm MSK. To access the full text of the article, click here.