Azerbaijan returns bodies of 173 people to Armenia, State Commission reports

The State Commission on Prisoners of War, Missing Persons, and Hostages informs that after the anti-terrorist operation conducted on September 19-20 last year, Azerbaijan found and handed over to Armenia the bodies of 173 people, Azernews reports, citing the Commission.

It was noted that the State Commission positively perceived the press statement about the readiness of the Armenian structure of the same name to cooperate in the field of determining the fate of persons missing in action and, as always, considers it expedient to join efforts in this direction.

It was noted that Azerbaijan, guided by the norms of international humanitarian law and relevant provisions of the trilateral statement signed on November 10, 2020, with the close participation of the Russian peacekeeping contingent and the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), created comprehensive conditions for the Armenian side to carry out search operations in the territories where military operations are conducted, and as a result of the 44-day war, 1713 people died and 157 others died after the military conflict on the Armenian-Azerbaijani conventional border on September 12–14, 2023.

According to information, during the First Garabagh War, 3,890 Azerbaijani citizens were registered with the State Commission as missing, and as of January 1 of this year, the remains of only 25 of them have been identified. The fate of 54 Azerbaijanis missing in action in the First Garabagh War has greatly concerned Azerbaijani society over the past period.

Thus, according to the data received in 1998-2001, 54 Azerbaijani citizens taken prisoners and hostages during the First Garabagh War were visited by the ICRC in places of detention in Armenia and in the occupied Azerbaijani territories, and they were officially registered with the organisation. However, the bodies of 17 of them were subsequently taken to Azerbaijan, the further fate of 4 people could not be established, and 33 people were declared dead in places of detention, but their bodies were not returned.

"At the same time, the State Commission considers it necessary to involve field commanders and other authorised persons, who have sufficient information about the places of mass graves and who led Armenia's military operations before 1994, in the process of searching for the burial places of the missing compatriots.

As a state commission, we reiterate our readiness to cooperate with the relevant structures of the Republic of Armenia in the field of ensuring the search for missing persons on both sides, observing the principles of accuracy, transparency in an atmosphere of mutual trust," the statement reads.