GANJA, Azerbaijan: Hours after a Russia-brokered ceasefire deal went into effect on Saturday, Armenia violated it and attacked a multi-apartment building in Azerbaijan’s western Ganja City, killing nine persons and injuring 34 further.
The ceasefire deal was reached upon between Azerbaijan and Armenia over the Nagorno-Karabakh Conflict as a result of 10-hours long negotiations, the Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov held with the Azeri Foreign Minister Jeyhun Bayramov and the Armenian Foreign Minister Zohrab Mnatsakanyan in Moscow.
However, despite the announced humanitarian ceasefire, Armenia didn’t give up its aggressive policy and deliberately continued to shell the civilian settlements with heavy artillery and missiles in blatant violation of the UN Charter, the norms and principles of international law, and international humanitarian law.
The Armenian armed forces attacked the multi-apartment building inhabited by children, women, and elderly people in Ganja on October 11.
Consequently, nine residents of the building were killed, 34 civilians got injured, and many civilian infrastructures were severely damaged.
It’s worth noting that key norms of the international humanitarian law and the Geneva Conventions prohibit targeting civilians and require distinguishing between combatants and civilians, military and civilian objects in military operations.
However, the Armenian armed forces have severely damaged the densely populated Ganja City, and also the strategically important Mingachevir City, and other settlements from heavy artillery and missiles, proving once again that Armenia ignores and displays full disrespect to the norms of the international law.
The occupant Armenia is violating the 1949 Geneva Conventions, and its Additional Protocols, especially the Geneva Convention (IV) Relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War of 12 August 1949, the 1954 Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict, Convention on the Rights of the Child and other international human rights instruments, indiscriminately targeting the civilian objects.
