By  Gary Cartwright

Publishing editor of EU Today

The ceasefire in Nagorno-Karabakh, brokered by Moscow, in order to allow for the recovery of fallen soldiers and for the exchange of prisoners, was broken almost as soon as it began.

In a terrifying onslaught Armenian missiles hit the western Azerbaijani city of Ganja, home to more than 350,000 people. At least ten people, including four children, are known to have died in the attack. Scores more are injured, many seriously.

Jeyhun Bayramov, Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Azerbaijan, said "The shelling of civilians in Ganja City by Armenia's armed forces after the humanitarian ceasefire agreement is another clear example of barbarism, and shows that the ceasefire calls of the Armenian leadership are nothing but hypocrisy".

Parallels have been drawn by observers with Srebrenica, where in July 1995 the international community failed to take appropriate actions, leading to the worst act of genocide on European soil since the Second World War.

"Unfortunately, such an act of massacre has not received proper and adequate response from Europe. We do not exclude a repetition of such actions," an Azerbaijani spokesman told EUToday.

Under article 8 of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court "Intentionally directing attacks against the civilian population as such or against individual civilians not taking direct part in hostilities;" is defined as a war crime.

Assistant to the President of the Republic of Azerbaijan and Head of the Department of Foreign Policy Affairs of the Presidential Administration Hikmat Hajiyev said that the actions should be considered as "Armenia's disrespect for the international community, including the Russian Federation".

The armed forces of Armenia continue to deliberately target the civilian population, private houses and other civilian infrastructure in residential areas along the line of contact and in the regions outside of conflict zone in a gross violation of International Humanitarian Law, including the 1949 Geneva Conventions and its Protocols.

As of today, totally 42 civilians, including children and elderly were killed, 206 civilians have been hospitalized with serious injuries. 1479 private houses, 66 apartment buildings and 241 civilian infrastructures were damaged and became unserviceable as a result of armed attack.

The original article was published on EUToday 

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