"Although the liberation of Azerbaijani territories from occupation during the Karabakh war in 2020 created great hopes for the clarification of the fate of the missing persons during the Karabakh war, the main factor that prevents Azerbaijan now is the contamination of the territories with mines and unexploded ammunition," said the Head of the Working Group of the State Commission on Prisoners of War, Hostages and Missing Persons Ismail Akhundov at the first international conference on "Forensic Archaeology and Forensic Anthropology: Humanitarian Application", APA reports.
"Buried landmines in liberated territories do not allow Azerbaiajn to carry out field work, including excavation and exhumation, at the known grave sites, which prolongs the suffering of the families of the missing. We hope that accurate mine maps, as well as the information regarding fate of the missing persons, their respective grave sites will be submitted to the Azerbaijani side. Finding and identifying the remains of the missing persons belonging to both sides depends very much on the attitude to the issue in the format I mentioned," he said.