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90 years have passed since genocide committed by Armenians against Azerbaijani people

31 March 2008 09:20 (UTC +04:00)

APA reports, hundreds of thousands of Azerbaijanis were killed with cruelty and tens of thousands were expelled from their homeland in Baku, Shamakhi, Guba, Karabakh, Nakhchivan, Zangazur and Lankaran provinces of Azerbaijan during the genocide on March 31, 1918. Armenian Dashnak forces killed more than 30 thousand civilians in Baku. They destroyed and devastated 58 villages in Shamakhi, 122 in Guba, 150 in the mountainous part of Karabakh, 115 in Zangazur, 211 in the Iravan province and 92 villages in Kars. Armenians killed more than 7 thousand people, as well as 1653 women and nearly one thousand children in Shamakhi and more than 130 thousand people were killed in Iravan province. Armenian military units killed Azerbaijanis because of their national identity only, even burned the people alive. They set on fire the houses, destroyed national architectural monuments, schools, hospitals, mosques and other buildings and reduced the most part of Baku to ruins. Council of Ministers of Azerbaijan Popular Republic established the emergency commission for the investigation of the fact of genocide. The Commission investigated the genocide committed on March 31, 1918, as well as Armenian barbarism in Shamakhi and grave crimes against the humanity in Iravan province. Special body was established under the Foreign Ministry for delivering of these facts to the world community. In 1919-20 Azerbaijan Popular Republic declared a Day of National Mourning on March 31. Later on March 26, 1998 President of Azerbaijan Heydar Aliyev ordered to declare March 31 as a Day of Genocide against Azerbaijanis. This year President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev has addressed the Azerbaijani people on the occasion of March 31, the Day of Genocide. The President noted that Armenian aggressors had pursued genocide policy against our people within the two centuries and the genocide policy was accompanied by mass slaughters and military operations. â€œSettling of Armenians moved from Iran and Ottoman Empire in the first half of 19th century in Karabakh and Zangazur and changing the demographic situation there by force, massacres against Azerbaijani population in 1905 and 1918, establishment of Armenian state in the historical part of Azerbaijan and concession of Iravan, one of the important cultural centers of Azerbaijan as a capital of Armenian state, giving Zangazur to Armenians by the Soviet power in 1920s, deportation of hundreds of thousands of Azerbaijanis from their historic lands in the territory of present Armenia in 1948-1953 and other facts are the tragic and bloody pages of the genocide historyâ€.