Khojaly Massacre
The Khojaly massacre, also known as the Khojaly tragedy, was the mass murder of at least 200 and possibly as high as 1,000 ethnic Azerbaijani civilians by Armenian armed forces and 366th CIS regiment in the town of Khojaly on 26 February 1992. The event became the largest single massacre throughout the entire Nagorno-Karabakh conflict
Khojaly, located on an important highway, was an Azerbaijani-populated town of some 6,000 people within the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast and also had the region's only airport. The town, getting shelled on a daily basis by the Armenian forces and totally blockaded during the First Nagorno-Karabakh war, with no supply of electricity, gas and water, was defended by local forces of about 160 or so lightly armed men. The Armenian forces launched an offensive in early-1992, forcing almost the entire Azerbaijani population of the enclave to flee, and committing "unconscionable acts of violence against civilians" as they fled.
On the night of 26 February 1992, the Armenian forces seized the town and massacred the civilians remaining in it. At the same time, a large number of Azerbaijani civilians were trying to escape the town and moving towards the Azerbaijani-controlled territories. However, the Armenian forces fired upon the fleeing Azerbaijani refugees, resulting in hundreds of deaths.
The massacre was one of the turning points during the First Nagorno-Karabakh War and had become the largest single massacre throughout the entire Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. The death toll given by the Azerbaijani authorities is 613 civilians, including 106 women and 63 children. According to Human Rights Watch, at least 200 Azerbaijani were murdered during the massacre, though as many as 500-1,000 may have died. Denial of the massacre, by either claiming that the massacre was committed by Azerbaijanis themselves or that no civilian was killed is common among Armenian officials and organisations. The victims of the massacre are mourned every year in Azerbaijan on 26 February.
