Aid shipments and evacuations as Azerbaijan reasserts control over breakaway province

The aid shipments and evacuations followed Azerbaijan’s months-long road blockade of the region led to food and fuel shortages

More badly needed humanitarian aid was on its way to the separatist region of Nagorno-Karabakh via both Azerbaijan and Armenia on Saturday. The development comes days after Baku reclaimed control of the province and began talks with representatives of its ethnic Armenian population on reintegrating the area, prompting some residents to flee their homes for fear of reprisals.

The aid shipments and evacuations followed Azerbaijan's months-long road blockade of the region led to food and fuel shortages. Baku followed with a lightning military offensive this week.

Nagorno-Karabakh came under the control of ethnic Armenian forces, backed by the Armenian military, in separatist fighting that ended in 1994. Armenian forces also took control of substantial territory around the Azerbaijani region.

Azerbaijan regained control of the surrounding territory in a six-week war with Armenia in 2020. A Russia-brokered armistice ended the war, and a contingent of 2,000 Russian peacekeepers was sent to the region to monitor it.

On Tuesday, Azerbaijan launched heavy artillery fire against ethnic Armenian forces in Nagorno-Karabakh. A cease-fire was announced a day later, toning down fears of a third full-scale war over the region.

Under the agreement mediated by Russian peacekeeping forces, Nagorno-Karabakh’s separatist authorities made sizable concessions: disbanding the region’s defense forces and withdrawing Armenia’s military contingent. But the question of Nagorno-Karabakh’s final status remains open, and at the center of talks between the sides that began Thursday in the Azerbaijani city of Yevlakh.

Russia’s RIA Novosti on Saturday published photos of tanks, air defense systems, and other weapons reportedly surrendered by the province’s separatist forces to the Azerbaijani army.