The Nagorno Karabakh (known as Artsakh to Armenians) is an ethnically Armenian and therefore religiously Christian region in the South Caucasus. It’s a territory not officially part of the Republic of Armenia, but Armenians have been living there since the 7th century BC. This is the place where the Armenian alphabet was developed, and is home to monastic architectural masterpieces from the 4th century.
On September 19th, 2023, Azerbaijan, a majority Muslim country, launched a full assault against the 120,000 civilian Christians, including 30,000 children in the disputed territory. (Why the territory is disputed is another story.) This attack came after 281 days of blockading the region from the Lachin Corridor, the only route connecting it to Armenia proper, and thereby cutting off food, gas, medical supplies effectively starving the residents.
While this blockade is new, their desire to religiously and ethnically cleanse the region is not. Nor is their desire to create one seamless pan-Turkic region:
Our goal is the complete elimination of Armenians. You, Nazis, already eliminated the Jews in the 1930s and 1940s, right? You should be able to understand us” – Hajibala Abutalybov, former mayor of Azerbaijan's capital city, Baku, to a German audience in 2005.
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