The future of Karabakh

     At the time of the offensive, mountainous Kelbajar province was largely cut off from the rest of Azerbaijan. Armenia lie to the west, the Lachin corridor (captured by Karabakh Armenian forces in June 1992) to the south, Mardakert province (with its vital Terter-Kelbajar road in Karabakh Armenian hands) to the east, and to the north, the Murov mountains reaching heights of over 10.000 feet toward over the province. Because of prior Karabakh Armenian land conquests, the only outlet from Kelbajar to Azerbaijan proper was over the Murov mountains to the north through the Omar pass, a treacherous journey in winter.

     An estimated 60.000 individuals - equally divided among Kurds and Azeris - lived in Kelbajar province before the offensive [40]. In the space of a week 60.000 people were forced to flee their homes. Today all are displaced, and Kelbajar stands empty and looted.

     The swift and short nature of the Kelbajar offensive, the mountainous terrain with few good roads, over which it was fought, and the late winter timing of the attack left the civilian population extremely vulnerable; many were taken hostage or killed by indiscriminate fire, even though most expected a Karabakh Armenian move against Kelbajar, civilians had little or no advance warning of the actual attack and even less time to make their escape after the limited roads still available were closed by advancing Karabakh Armenian forces. The Azerbaijani army put up little resistance often melting away into the civilian population. Main Karabakh Armenian units fired on escaping civilians, sometimes mistaking them for retreating Azerbaijani forces.

By Thursday afternoon, April 1, a fleet of six ME-8 civilian helicopters, designed to carry a maximum load of thirty, managed to extract several thousand women and children by doubling and trebling their loads. The helicopters were forced to swoop through a narrow canyon to reach a tiny, shell-pocked landing pad and then fly over a 4.000 meter mountain range to return to their base in the Azerbaijani city of Yevlakh, about an hour away...even if most of the civilian population is now gone or on its way out the situation in Kelbajar is certainly desperate [57].