KORNIDZOR: The flood of refugees from Nagorno-Karabakh dwindled to a trickle on Saturday as Armenia said nearly the entire population of the breakaway territory had already fled since Azerbaijan seized back control.
At the Kornidzor crossing into Armenia, only several ambulances arrive as border guards said they were waiting for a final few buses.
In the nearest town of Goris, hundreds of exhausted refugees waited amongst their baggage in the central square for the government to offer accommodation.
Azerbaijan's lightning military takeover of the ethnic Armenian enclave last week sparked a sudden exodus that has rewritten the centuries-old ethnic makeup of the disputed region.
Armenia said on Saturday that over 100,000 people from an estimated population of 120,000 had fled since the breakaway region saw its decades-long fight against Azerbaijani rule end in sudden defeat.
Artak Beglaryan, a former separatist official, said that according to unofficial information "the last groups" of Nagorno-Karabakh residents were on their way to Armenia on Saturday.
"At most a few hundred persons remain, most of whom are officials, emergency services employees, volunteers, some persons with special needs," he wrote on social media.
The United Nations has said it will send a mission to Nagorno-Karabakh, mainly to assess humanitarian needs, the first time the international body has had access to the region in about 30 years.
Armenia has asked the UN's highest court to take urgent measures to protect the enclave's inhabitants, the court announced on Friday.
Yerevan urged the International Court of Justice (ICJ) to ensure that Azerbaijan does not move to displace the remaining ethnic Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh.
The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies announced an emergency appeal for $22 million to help the refugees.
The region's supporters and pro-Russians staged six days of anti-government protests that they interrupted this week to help Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan focus on helping the refugees.
But they intend to hold another big and disruptive rally on Saturday aimed at punishing Pashinyan for deciding not to help separatist forces fight Azerbaijan.
Moscow has deployed peacekeepers in the region that were meant to police a truce ending a 2020 war in which Baku clawed back some of the lands it lost to the separatists in the 1990s.
Pashinyan called Yerevan's current alliances "ineffective" and urged parliament in next week's session to ratify a document that would make Armenia a member of the International Criminal Court. — AFP
Oman Observer is now on the WhatsApp channel. Click here
