Agdaban massacre

The Aghdaban massacre, or the Aghdaban tragedy (Ағдабан фаҹиәси/Ağdaban faciəsi), was the mass murder of Azerbaijani civilians in Aghdaban, located in the Kalbajar District of Azerbaijan, by the Armenian forces, which had occupied the village on 8 April 1992, in the course of the First Nagorno-Karabakh War. The Armenian forces killed the villagers and completely destroyed the village. During the massacre, more than 30 Azerbaijani civilians were killed, while hundreds were taken captive and then tortured. The massacre of Azerbaijanis in Aghdaban was one of the several anti-Azerbaijani massacres committed during the war, with the Khojaly massacre being most notable among them.

Background
Aghdaban is a village located in the Kalbajar District, a mountainous region within Azerbaijan, which lies outside of the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast (NKAO), and was mostly populated by ethnic Azerbaijanis and Kurds. It is located on the right ridge of the namesake river, and on the slopes of Mount Aghdaban of Murov range. The village is 56 km north-east of Kalbajar, the district's administrative centre. It was founded circa 1900 by noble bey families who had moved there from Kalbajar to establish their estates. Before the war, the village had a population of 779 people, virtually all of whom were ethnic Azerbaijanis.

During the Soviet era, an autonomous oblast within the Azerbaijani SSR governed the predominantly Armenian-populated region of Nagorno-Karabakh. As the Soviet Union began to disintegrate during the late 1980s, the question of the region's status re-emerged, and on 20 February 1988, the parliament of the NKAO passed a resolution requesting transfer of the oblast from the Azerbaijani SSR to the Armenian SSR. Azerbaijan rejected the request several times, and ethnic violence began shortly after with a series of pogroms between 1988 and 1990 against Armenians in Sumgait, Ganja and Baku,   and against Azerbaijanis in Gugark   and Stepanakert. Following the revocation of Nagorno-Karabakh's autonomous status, an independence referendum was held in the region on 10 December 1991. The Azerbaijani population, which then constituted around 22.8% of the region's population boycotted the referendum. 99.8% of participants voted in favour. In early 1992, following the Soviet Union's collapse, the region descended into outright war.

Prelude
The Armenian forces launched an offensive on 18 May 1992 to take the city of Lachin, thus seizing control of the narrow, mountainous Lachin corridor, a key road connecting Goris in Syunik Province, southern Armenia, to Stepanakert, the regional capital for the Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh; the only other major road connecting Armenia to Nagorno-Karabakh passses through the Murov range. The city itself was poorly guarded and, within the next day, the Armenian forces took control of the city. Following the city's capture by the Armenian forces, it was burned down and all of its original Azerbaijani and Kurdish of 7,800 people became refugees as a result of forceful deportations.

Massacre


On 8 April 1992, after taking control of Lachin, the Armenian forces launched an attack on Aghdaban. They completely burned down the village, and massacred more than 30 Azerbaijani civilians. The Armenian forces also took hundreds of Azerbaijanis as captives and tortured them. According to the Azerbaijani sources, the Armenian forces also looted and destroyed historical and cultural monuments, as well as Muslim shrines and cemeteries in the village.

Aftermath
The massacre of Azerbaijanis in Aghdaban was one of the several anti-Azerbaijani massacres committed during the war, following the massacres in Baganis Ayrum, Gushchular and Malibeyli, Garadaghly, and Khojaly.

The Armenian forces launched a final offensive for Kalbajar in March 1993, and fully occupied the region in April, gaining control of the highest peak in the whole Karabakh, Mount Murovdagh. The Armenian advancement in Kalbajar was conducted with numerous violations of the rules of war, including forcible exodus of civilian population, indiscriminate fire and hostage-taking. During the offensive, over 500 Azerbaijani civilians were killed, and more than 60 thousand Azerbaijanis were displaced. On 30 April, the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) passed Resolution 822, demanding the immediate cessation of all hostilities and the withdrawal of all occupying forces from Kalbajar. Following this, in early June, Surat Huseynov, an Azerbaijani military commander, frustrated with what he felt was then Azerbaijani president Abulfaz Elchibey's incompetence and his demotion, rebelled and marched from its base in Ganja towards Baku. Elchibey stepped down from office on 18 June, and power was assumed by then parliamentary member and an ex-Soviet leader Heydar Aliyev. On 1 July, Huseynov was appointed as the Prime Minister of Azerbaijan.