The article quoted Thomas Goltz as saying: “After the return to Azerbaijan of the majority of the territories occupied by Armenia for almost three decades, researchers have begun to document the missing 4,000 Azerbaijani’s from the first Karabakh war which included POW’s and civilians, as well as elderly, women and children.”
In his article, Goltz pointed to how non-combatants (i.e., civilians) ‘unfortunate enough to be taken hostage often work as virtual slaves in private homes until exchanged for hostages from the other side, or sometimes just for food and fuel — or even corpses.
“One case involved the deaths of eight Azerbaijani POWs in Armenia’s capital, Yerevan. The International Red Cross was told that they had been executed during an ‘escape attempt.’ These eight were returned to Azerbaijan with two older remains of Azerbaijani soldiers who had died of unknown causes. Post mortems revealed that seven of the newer corpses ‘were shot at point-blank range, six in the head and one in the chest, while an eighth had his throat slashed. Four ears had been severed and one body had been eviscerated,” Goltz wrote.
The article also included some excerpts from the articles highlighting this issue in the Washington Post and The Economist newspapers.
More about: Karabakh
