February 2024 Persecution Magazine

The families are struggling with the trauma of such rapid displacement
and the loss of their nation, their land, homes, farms and everything
they left behind. Most of the men served in the armed forces in
defense of their land in the last war and are experiencing a deep
sense of defeat from losing their homeland. The women and children
are in trauma from the rapid displacement and in losing everything,
and in some cases, family members who died or who are missing
since the conflict and displacement.
All the Artsakh refugees ICC has spoken with shared that the reason
they left was because they feared being massacred by the Azerbaijani
military if they stayed under their control.
In addition to the complex history of conflict between both sides
over the territory, there is a deep sense of the history of the
Armenian genocide repeating itself, which happened more than a
century ago and killed and displaced millions of Armenians. At that
time, the Ottoman Empire declared a holy war against the empire’s
Christians and sought to kill, or displace from their lands, its Christian
populations and perhaps most significantly, Armenian Christians.
Rhetoric leading up to the conflict from Azerbaijani officials and
media outlets enhanced that fear of a similar intent in Artsakh, with
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Persecution | FEBRUARY 2024