Social

Home page

Social

Sharafat Hasanov: Thirty-two mass graves have been discovered in Azerbaijan's liberated territories to date

30 June 2026 10:23 (UTC +04:00)

The occupation of Azerbaijan's internationally recognized sovereign territories for nearly 30 years prevented the clarification of the fate of the country's missing citizens, Sharafat Hasanov, Deputy Head of the State Security Service, said at the international conference titled "Modern Approaches to Resolving the Issue of Missing Persons and Strengthening Cooperation", held in cooperation with the International Commission on Missing Persons (ICMP), APA reports.

He said that following the 44-day war in 2020 and the anti-terror measures carried out in 2023, one of the main tasks assigned by the President of the Republic of Azerbaijan, Ilham Aliyev, to the State Commission was to identify burial sites belonging to missing citizens in the liberated territories and to conduct the necessary excavation and exhumation work: "To this end, since February 2021, an intensive process has been launched in those territories to search for burial sites of missing persons, carry out excavations, conduct exhumations, and identify the discovered human remains.

As of June 30, 2026, human remains believed to belong to 893 missing persons have been discovered.

I would particularly like to note that since the start of search and excavation work in the liberated territories, 32 mass graves have been discovered. Human remains believed to belong to 253 individuals were identified in those mass graves and exhumed with the participation of representatives of the investigative authorities.

As of June 30, 2026, as a result of forensic molecular genetic examinations of the discovered human remains, the identities of 327 persons who went missing during the First Karabakh War have been established. Information on 226 of them has been made public, and their remains have been handed over to their families and buried in accordance with the requirements of the law and national and religious traditions.

Of those buried, 181 were military personnel and 45 were civilians. Among the identified civilians, 14 were women and 2 were minors."

Azerbaijan missing persons ICMP State Security Service Sharafat Hasanov liberated territories mass graves First Karabakh War DNA identification exhumation Ilham Aliyev