Demonstrations demanding more support and solidarity with Nagorno-Karabakh refugees. In Belgium and in many French cities, numerous rallies took place on Sunday (October 1st) in support of Armenians who fled Nagorno-Karabakh, retaken by Azerbaijan after a lightning offensive.

Armenian separatists, who have controlled Nagorno-Karabakh for three decades, capitulated and agreed to lay down their arms last week after a lightning offensive by Azerbaijan to recapture the territory. Since then, the enclave has been almost entirely deserted by its inhabitants, with more than 100,000 refugees fleeing to Armenia for fear of reprisals from Azerbaijan.

Marseille mayor denounces Europe's "betrayal" for "Azeri gas"

In Marseille, more than a thousand people according to the police and "nearly 5,000" according to the organizers gathered at the Old Port. "We are here to denounce the silence of the international community," said Julien Harounyan, president of the coordinating council of Armenian France associations for the south of the country. "The message is clear: Karabakh is Armenia."

For his part, the mayor of Marseille Benoit Payan, also present, notably called on the France to "freeze the assets" of Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev, and considered that Europe "betrays its values when it decides to buy from the Azeris the gas it can no longer buy in Russia, (... who) is behind this manipulation".

In Lyon, about 500 people participated. French President "Emmanuel Macron has taken a stand against the Azeri government. But it lacks action. Today, we are waiting for it to be the France, the EU, (which) really react to what is happening because it is alarming," Annabelle Jallud, 38, president of the Armenian House of Culture in Décines (Rhône), told reporters.

About 80 people participated in Clermont-Ferrand and between 100 and 150 in Châteauroux, according to the organizers.

The participants, at the call of the network of organizations "Europeans for Artsakh", Armenian name for Nagorno-Karabakh, accuse Azerbaijan of carrying out "ethnic cleansing" in this region, from which almost the entire Armenian population fled in a few days. Azerbaijan refutes these accusations and assures that the inhabitants of the enclave are free to leave or stay.

Marseille has a large community of Armenian origin, generally estimated at some 80,000 people, who arrived in the 1920s after the massacres and deportations by the troops of the Ottoman Empire.

"Sell 2000 years of Armenian civilization against Azeri gas"

Thousands of people demonstrated Sunday in Brussels, the seat of the EU institutions, with the same slogans.

In the Belgian capital, thousands of Armenians, from several European countries, converged Sunday in Brussels to denounce the "complicity" of Europe after the Azerbaijani military operation in Nagorno-Karabakh. European leaders are "criminals against the Armenian people, they shed the blood of the Armenian people," said one of the organizers of this demonstration, Talline Tashdian, in front of thousands of people, often young people, from France, Belgium, the Netherlands and Germany.

About fifty buses made the trip from the Island of France, where part of the Armenian community of France, one of the largest in Europe, lives.

Gathered at the Schumann roundabout, at the heart of the Europe of the institutions, these demonstrators attacked with emotion and anger the European Union, guilty, according to them, of turning a blind eye to the tragedy of the Armenians in exchange for Azerbaijani gas that the EU buys to partially compensate for the loss of Russian gas.

"Sell 2000,<> years of Armenian civilization for Azeri gas," read a sign held up by one protester. In another, displaying a photo of the President of the European Commission shaking hands with Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev, it is the EU's complicity with Baku that is denounced.

Some 10,000 people were present in Brussels, according to the organisers. Police in the Belgian capital put them at more than 3,000, adding that this is an estimate made at the beginning of the rally.

Former French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner made the trip to support the Armenian cause.

Mayors of major French cities sign a platform for the EU

In an article published Sunday on the website of the French newspaper Le Monde, mayors of major French cities and other elected officials call on "the France and the European Union (to) take strong action in favor of the protection of populations and the peace process".

"If the Azerbaijani president does not hear the calls of the UN secretary-general or those of the European heads of state, economic sanctions will have to be taken," demand the signatories, including the mayors of Paris Anne Hidalgo (PS), Marseille Benoît Payan (various left), Lyon Grégory Doucet (EELV), Nice Christian Estrosi (Horizons) or Strasbourg (Jeanne Barseghian (EELV), as well as the presidents of several regions.

With AFP

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