First coronavirus case confirmed in occupied Nagorno-Karabakh

By Akbar Mammadov

The first coronavirus (COVID-19) infection has been registered in Azerbaijan's Nagorno-Karabakh region occupied by Armenia.

According to the Armenian media's report on April 7, the results of the tests of two samples sent to Armenia on suspicion of the coronavirus were received Tuesday, and one of them was positive.

Having been admitted to the hospital on April 2, the infected patient and all 17 citizens who had been in contact with this infected person before had also been self-isolated. 

Azerbaijan and Armenia are locked in a conflict over Azerbaijan’s Nagorno-Karabakh breakaway region, which along with seven adjacent regions was occupied by Armenian forces in a war in the early 1990s. More than 20,000 Azerbaijanis were killed and around one million were displaced as a result of the large-scale hostilities.

The OSCE Minsk Group co-chaired by the United States, Russia and France has been mediating the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict since the signing of the volatile cease-fire agreement in 1994. The Minsk Group’s efforts have resulted in no progress and to this date, Armenia has failed to abide by the UN Security Council resolutions (822, 853, 874 and 884) that demand the withdrawal of Armenian military forces from the occupied territories of Azerbaijan.