Siege of Stepanakert 1991
Recorded location from Wikidata; battle sites are often approximate.
Key facts
| Year | 1991 | Wikidata P580 (start time) |
|---|---|---|
| Era | Post-1945 (1946 onwards) | derived from year |
| Location | Azerbaijan | Natural Earth (modern borders) |
| Continent | Asia | Natural Earth |
| War / conflict | First Nagorno-Karabakh War | Wikidata P361 |
| Coordinates | 39.8153, 46.7519 | Wikidata P625 |
About the battle
The siege of Stepanakert started in late 1991, during the First Nagorno-Karabakh War, in Stepanakert, the largest city in Nagorno-Karabakh, when the Azerbaijani forces circled the city. Until May 1992, the city and its Armenian population were the target of a months-long campaign of bombardment by Azerbaijan. The bombardment of Stepanakert and adjacent Armenian towns and villages, which took place under the conditions of total blockade by Azerbaijan, caused widespread destruction and many civilian deaths.
Human Rights Watch reported that the main bases used by Azerbaijani Armed Forces for the bombardment of Stepanakert included the towns of Khojaly and Shusha. Azerbaijani forces used weapons such as the BM-21 Grad multiple-launch rocket systems. The indiscriminate shelling, sniper shooting and aerial attacks killed or maimed hundreds of civilians and destroyed homes, hospitals, and other buildings that were not legitimate military targets, and generally terrorized the civilian population. As a result of the offensive launched by Azerbaijan on Nagorno-Karabakh, more than 40,000 people became refugees, and dozens of villages were burnt and ruined.
According to the Memorial Human Rights Center, the residential areas of both Stepanakert and Shusha were shelled on a regular basis with the use of artillery and rocket launchers.
Text adapted from the Wikipedia article Siege of Stepanakert (revision 1373360346), licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Changes: excerpted from the article lead section; shortened by selecting paragraphs and trimming at a sentence boundary; formatting and citations removed. No text added.
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