Wed 14 October 2020:
Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu urged Armenia and Azerbaijan to observe a ceasefire in the Nagorno-Karabakh region in a telephone call with his counterparts from those countries, the Russian Defence Ministry said on Wednesday.
Since coming into force on Saturday, a Russian-brokered truce has frayed, with both sides accusing each other of grave violations and attacks on civilians.’
Aliyev says Azerbaijan continues military operation
Azeri President Ilham Aliyev said on Wednesday that Azerbaijan was continuing a military operation to free territory in Nagorno-Karabakh, Russian news agency Interfax reported.
The renewed fighting in and around Nagorno-Karabakh is the worst since a 1994 ceasefire ended a war over the breakaway region that killed at least 30,000.
Azerbaijani mothers in the country’s second-largest city Ganja urged the Armenian mothers to take their children out of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict area.
‘Take your children out of Upper Karabakh’
The mothers of children, who were injured in recent medium-range ballistic missile attack of the Armenian forces, told Anadolu Agency how they rescued children from debris following the overnight attack.
The missile strike by Armenian forces at around 2 a.m. local time Sunday (2200GMT Saturday) on Ganja, located outside the frontline zone, within 24 hours of the truce violated a tentative cease-fire between the two sides, leaving at least 10 people dead and 35 others wounded, including women and children.
At least 42 civilians in Azerbaijan have lost their lives, while 206 others sustained injuries in Armenian forces’ attacks on civilian settlements, Azerbaijan’s Prosecutor General’s Office said on Tuesday.
In a statement, the office said 479 houses, 66 apartments, and 241 public buildings have become unusable due to the attacks carried out by Armenia on Sept. 27-Oct. 13.
The clashes began on Sept. 27 when Armenian forces targeted civilian Azerbaijani settlements and military positions in the region, leading to casualties.
Relations between the two former Soviet republics have been tense since 1991 when the Armenian military occupied Upper Karabakh, or Nagorno-Karabakh, an internationally recognized territory of Azerbaijan.
