Balconies nonetheless had garments. Somebody’s quilt was drying on one other, but there was nothing to be heard.
Some window sills had vegetation, maybe watered by the rain the night time earlier than. Just a few cats and canine with collars often handed us by.
As we walked by means of the empty streets of Stepanakert, there was little signal of the 100,000 souls who simply days in the past counted the town as their house.
All the inhabitants of largely ethnic Armenians had left on the drop of a hat following Azerbaijan’s lightning invasion of Nagorno-Karabakh a number of weeks in the past.
Fearing ethnic cleaning, they clambered into automobiles, buses and vans with every part they may take with them. We had been the primary to realize entry and see what was left behind.
What I’d seen in pictures forward of coming right here was a spot brimming with individuals and life.
It was now a desolate, empty area between the revival sq. and the presidential palace.
It was strewn with chairs, strollers, wheelchairs, blankets, half-open items of baggage, half-eaten items of bread, half-empty cups of tea. One may really feel the urgency in how individuals simply acquired up and left in haste. An exodus.
Eerie silence awaited because the sound of our automotive caught the eye of the animals who roamed the streets. As we coated extra floor, we lastly reached the renaissance sq. or Veratsnound. It regarded like a scene from an apocalyptic film.
We lastly got here throughout human life once we met a Purple Cross (ICRC) patrol, going by means of the town, searching for these left behind.
“We’re looking for the aged, the weak, individuals who didn’t have family or neighbours to assist them,” I used to be instructed by Marco Succi who had simply arrived to guide the ICRC’s speedy deployment crew.
The disputed space of Nagorno-Karabakh, close to the town of Stepanakert, was invaded by Azerbaijan a number of weeks in the past – Osama Bin Javaid/Al Jazeera
We adopted them to a staging level the place some aged and disabled individuals had been being helped by the Purple Cross.
“Even the morgue employees is gone,” Mr Succi instructed me as his crew was making preparations to repatriate the useless as effectively.
“We’ve labored with Azerbaijani authorities and stay up for working with them so we are able to present reduction,” he added after I requested him concerning the new directors on the town. Highway indicators are already being changed.
Water and electrical energy had been nonetheless working once we had been there. Support employees are involved concerning the coming winter and lack of entry to rural areas due to safety issues. Armenian activists requested us to not movie them as they wished to get out as effectively and didn’t need their faces on digital camera.
However we managed to have a fast dialog with two aged gents with contrasting views.
The primary one was offended and mentioned: “That is my Artsakh, our lands. They may by no means be theirs.”
The opposite man mentioned to our crew member: “I need to dwell right here with everybody, I’ve Azerbaijani pals who inform me I shouldn’t depart so I’m staying right here.”
Some puppies got here to us, maybe hungry. Just a few canine sat between my legs, however I wasn’t their human.
They couldn’t scent what they longed for. Near Russian peacekeepers, one canine stored going round one explicit chair. I believe that’s the place its proprietor final sat down. They too had been as deserted because the residences, companies and houses of this metropolis.
The hooves of a stud strolling its crew broke the quiet within the sq.. These magnificent horses had a number of German shepherds and a few huskies for firm. However there appeared a code among the many animals: make no sounds. Maybe they too had been scared just like the people of Stepanakert (known as Khankendi in Azerbaijan), who had left fearing persecution.
A number of assurances from Azerbaijan couldn’t persuade individuals to remain.
“For the final 30 years, Azerbaijan has suffered from the occupation. Round a million Azerbaijani inhabitants have turn out to be refugees and IDPs and left this area,” Aykhan Hajizada later instructed me.
We heard a gunshot, solely to search out out later {that a} joint Russian-Azerbaijani patrol was shot at from a window. Earlier than the solar went down we mentioned goodbye to the town.
Quickly after we arrived in Shusha, police got here searching for us for “illegally” getting into Khankendi with out permission. They instructed us that we endangered lives by going into an space which is an unknown.
And after a lot violence and the invention of caches of weapons, we had been “silly” to report from and enter this zone. We had been requested to depart the lodge and go to the police station and, after a number of hours, a police automobile escorted us out of not simply the town, however the Karabakh area.
I’ve met many Azerbaijanis who need to return to their houses after being displaced 30 years in the past when Armenian forces took this territory.
So, if that is the top of the highway for tens of hundreds of ethnic Armenians, it’d simply be the start for tons of of hundreds of Azerbaijanis.
I’d prefer to return to this metropolis, this area. Hopefully then bustling with life once more, and now not a ghost city.
Osama Javaid is a correspondent for Al-Jazeera.
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