Armenia notes difficulties in POWs' exchange

Azerbaijan has confirmed the list of prisoners of war (POWs), but Armenia s receiving more and more information about those in captivity, said Artak Beglaryan, the Ombudsperson of Nagorno-Karabakh.

The "Caucasian Knot" has reported that on December 5, it became known that Azerbaijan and Armenia had agreed on the exchange of POWs in the "all for all" format. A day earlier, the Armenian and Azerbaijani parties had exchanged lists of POWs.

The list is updated as the facts of captivity are confirmed, Mr Beglaryan told the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent.

"I can state that there are two lists of POWs: one, confirmed by the Azerbaijani party, and the second one – compiled based on the collected facts of capture. In the latest data, voiced by me, the captivity of about 60 people became known from the collected facts. However, the real number of POWs is definitely higher than stated by Azerbaijan," Artak Beglaryan has stressed.

The Karabakh Ombudsperson has explained that only one elderly woman from his voiced list had been returned. "In the course of fact-finding, we also received confirmation of POWs' killings. We have data about the return of at least five bodies of civilians who had been killed in Azerbaijani captivity. This will be presented in detail in my report," he said.

This article was originally published on the Russian page of 24/7 Internet agency ‘Caucasian Knot’ on December 8, 2020 at 11:48 pm MSK. To access the full text of the article, click here.