Deputy Prime Minister: “Azerbaijan has 1,200,000, not one million refugees and IDPs”

Deputy Prime Minister: “Azerbaijan has 1,200,000, not one million refugees and IDPs”
# 20 June 2013 14:04 (UTC +04:00)

Hasanov noted that one million was the statistics of 1992-93. Over the last 20 years the natural growth rate of population of the country made up 100:1, it means that the number of refugees and IDPs has increased: “Increasing 10,000 every year this number has reached 1,200,000. 1,200,000 out of more than 9,000,000 people are refugees and IDPs. That is, one in every 135 people is a refugee in the world, while in Azerbaijan it is one in every 8. Our problem is very hard.”

Hasanov said that the Nagorno Karabakh conflict differs from other conflicts in the world: “Two or three conflicts in the world have similarity with our conflict. The others are the problems that emerged inside the countries. Ours is the conflict that occurred as a result of one country’s aggression against another - Armenia's aggression against Azerbaijan. Azerbaijani citizens have become refugees and internally displaced persons in their native lands.”

The Deputy Prime Minister said that today Azerbaijan is able to completely provide its refugees and IDPs: “However, some international humanitarian organizations continue cooperating with us. There are new organizations among them. The main point is that Azerbaijani President solves all problems himself. The only problem is to find a political solution to the conflict.”

The Committee Chairman has also released the statistics on the social welfare of refugees and IDPs: “Today poverty rate among IDPs is 15%, while it was 75% in 2003. Only last year $1300 was spent on each of the refugees and internally displaced persons. This is the highest figure in all conflict zones of the world. In no other conflict zone so much money is spent on one person. The total costs are not included here. In general, costs of refugees and IDPs amounted to AZN 300 mln last year. AZN 600 mln is expected to be spent on them this year. $ 5.4 bln has been spent on these people over the past 20 years.”

Nagorno Garabagh

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