Nagorno-Karabakh: suspicion of abuses against prisoners of war
Soldiers of the Armenian-led Nagorno-Karabakh defense army in a truck to Martakert, September 29, 2020. Narek Aleksanyan / AFP
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2 min
More than a month after the end of the clashes between Armenia and Azerbaijan for control of Nagorno-Karabakh, videos of executions of prisoners of war and civilians continue to circulate on social networks.
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In these images, much shared on the Telegram network, two
Armenian
villagers
are beheaded by Azerbaijani soldiers.
Gruesome and bloody videos like these, Siranush Sahakyan, an Armenian lawyer, has seen hundreds of times.
Its goal is to identify the victims and every minute counts.
“
Some of the victims in the videos are still alive and held hostage.
Their lives are under imminent threat.
That's why we don't have time to waste identifying the perpetrators of the crimes.
We will look into that later,
”she explains.
With the help of a colleague, she analyzes hundreds of macabre videos in order to identify the victims and prepare an investigation against the perpetrators of these crimes before the European Court of Human Rights.
While this week,
the two countries exchanged prisoners of war
, Siranush Sahakyan says he is pursuing 75 cases of soldiers and captive civilians.
35 of them were identified thanks to the videos she receives from relatives of the victims.
“
Some videos, you have to watch them not just once, but dozens of times.
Every detail counts.
We analyze the rocks, the flags, everything to understand where and when it happened.
Emotionally, it is very difficult and it affects me a lot,
”she confides.
For the moment, the NGO Amnesty International claims to have authenticated twelve videos showing abuses committed by the Armenian forces, and ten committed by the Azerbaijani army.
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