June 23, 2023

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"Summary"

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Validating experts’ warnings of Azerbaijan’s advanced destruction of Armenian cultural heritage in Artsakh, a new report by Caucasus Heritage Watch (CHW) confirms a 75% increase in destroyed sites across the region since the mass displacement of its indigenous ethnic Armenian population last year.Through satellite image comparisons between fall 2023, when more than 100,000 ethnic Armenians were forced out of their homeland by the autocratic Azerbaijani regime, and spring 2024, CHW’s latest report draws attention to the destruction of historic schools, burial grounds, and sacred places, and identifies a 29% increase in sites classified as threatened across Artsakh (also known as Nagorno-Karabakh).“Overall, our spring 2024 monitoring cycle has revealed the greatest number of impacted sites since spring 2021, when we began monitoring cultural heritage following the Second Nagorno-Karabakh War,” wrote CHW’s Principal Investigators Ian Lindsay, Adam T. Smith,and Lori Khatchadourian in a summary. They noted that they had paid special attention to Azerbaijani activity in the Kalbajar district and in the hilltop town of Shushi (known as Shusha in Azerbaijani), which were captured by the regime in the 44-day war in 2020.Included in the report was the demolition of Kanach Zham church (Armenian for “Green Chapel”) as well as the completed destruction of the Ghazanchetsots cemetery in Shushi after CHW data yielded evidence of earlier damages to both cultural sites. At the base of the hill Shushi Kanach Zham in 2022, after losing its domes due to damages sustained during the 44-day war in 2020. (photo by Solavirum via Wikimedia Commons )was built on, a village called Karintak(“Dashalty” to Azerbaijanis) was completely leveled between last fall and April of this year, likely to make way for a new Azerbaijani residential settlement.