23 years without Fuzuli, Jabrayil

By Azernews

By Amina Nazarli

August 23 marks the 23rd occupation anniversary of Azerbaijan's ancient and beautiful Fuzuli and Jabrayil regions by the Armenian invasion troops.

The enemy forces occupied the whole Jabrayil and over 90 percent (1,256 sq. km. or 50 villages) of Fuzuli region, leaving more than 116,000 inhabitants displaced.

Starting 1988, when Armenia made territorial claims against Azerbaijan, Fuzuli was subjected to constant attacks by Armenian militaries. As a result of the occupation, more than 1,100 inhabitants of Fuzuli were martyred, 113 people were taken hostage and 1,450 people were left disabled.

The Fuzuli region had a population of approximately 105,000 people. The region covers a territory from the south eastern slopes of the Karabakh Mountain range to the Araz River. It borders the Azerbaijani regions of Khojavand, Jabrayil, Agjabadi, Beylagan and Iran along the Araz River.

After invading Azerbaijan's territories, Armenia has been pursuing the campaign of ruining cultural and historical monuments of Azerbaijani people. The ancient historical monuments of world importance were left under occupation in Fuzuli and many of them were destructed.

The most famous of these monuments is the Azykh Cave, known as a living site of stone-age man. A Neanderthal-style jaw bone found in 1968 is thought to be over 300,000 years old and thus one of the oldest proto-human remains found in this part of the world.  Archaeological samples found in Azykh Paleolithic camp, were shown at the Paris Museum’s exhibition "The first inhabitants of Europe."

Now Azikh cave and Taghlar caves are under Armenian occupation. The fate of both caves, as well as other ancient monuments is unknown.

Fuzuli also had unusual flora and fauna, mineral springs and was also famous for its forests, which accommodated precious woods. After the occupation of the region, Armenians ruthlessly cut down trees, destroying the nature and plundering the natural wealth.

The Jabrayil region, located in the south and the south-eastern part, had a population of over 60,000. Before the occupation, viticulture, livestock sector and cereals cultivation played a main role in the economy of the region.

As a result of the seizure of the Jabrayil region, whose territory spans 1,050 sq.km, 72 secondary school buildings, eight hospitals, five mosques, two museums, 129 historical monuments and 149 cultural centers were left under occupation.

More than 350 people were killed, 177 people became disabled and 91 were captured and went missing during the war against Armenian aggressors.

Today, only one - Jojuglu Marjanli village of Jabrayil's 90 villages is under control of Azerbaijani Armed Forces.

Prior to the occupation, many historical and archaeological monuments as well as masterpieces of architecture (such as ancient living mansions; burial mounds; mosques; hammams; round and octahedral turbehs, the Khudaferin bridge etc) existed in the territory of the region.

Jabrayil has suffered $ 14 million damage. Some 61,100 IDPs from the Jabrayil region settled in more than 2,000 settlements in 58 regions of the country.

Occupation of these two regions produced the next largest refugee crisis after exodus of Lachin, Kelbajar and Agdam.

Today, with a population of over 9.6 million, Azerbaijan is among the countries carrying the highest IDP caseload in the world in per capita terms.

Due to the ethnic cleansing policy carried out by Armenia and the Armenian occupation of Nagorno-Karabakh and seven surrounding regions of Azerbaijan, the number of refugees and internally displaced persons hit more than 1.2 million.

Armenian armed forces have occupied over 20 percent of Azerbaijan's internationally recognized territory. Despite the official ceasefire back in 1994, each year the conflict becomes a cause of the deaths of dozens of civilians and military.

The latest outbreak of violence on the contact proved that it is impossible to resolve the conflict by keeping a status quo.