First refugees from Nagorno-Karabakh arrive in Armenia following Azerbaijan's military offensive

The first refugees from Nagorno-Karabakh have arrived in Armenia, local officials reported Sunday, and more were expected to come after a 10-month blockade and a lightning military offensive this month that resulted in Azerbaijan reclaiming full control of the breakaway region.

The first refugees from Nagorno-Karabakh have arrived in Armenia, local officials reported Sunday, after Azerbaijan imposed a 10-month blockade on the breakaway region and conducted a lightning military offensive there, reclaiming full control of the region as a result.

Thousands of people were evacuated from cities and villages affected by the latest fighting and taken to a Russian peacekeepers' camp in Nagorno-Karabakh. A total of 377 people had arrived in Armenia from the region as of Sunday night, Armenian authorities reported.

Russia's Defense Ministry reported that its peacekeepers, who were deployed in Nagorno-Karabakh in 2020, helped transport 311 civilians, including 102 children. The conflicting numbers could not be immediately reconciled.

"It was a nightmare. There are no words to describe. The village was heavily shelled. Almost no one is left in the village," one of the evacuees told The Associated Press in the Armenian city of Kornidzor. She refused to give her name for security reasons. "I have an old grandmother's house here in Tegh village, (in the Syunik region of Armenia). I will live there until we see what happens next."

Nagorno-Karabakh is located in Azerbaijan and came under the control of ethnic Armenian forces, backed by the Armenian military, in separatist fighting that ended in 1994. During a six-week war in 2020, Azerbaijan took back parts of Nagorno-Karabak along with territory surrounding the region that Armenian forces had claimed during the earlier conflict.

A Russia-brokered armistice ended the war, and a contingent of about 2,000 Russian peacekeepers was sent to the region to monitor it. Parts of Nagorno-Karabakh that weren't retaken by Azerbaijan remained under the control of the separatist authorities.

In December, Azerbaijan imposed a blockade of the only road connecting Nagorno-Karabakh with Armenia, alleging that the Armenian government was using the road for mineral extraction and illicit weapons shipments to the province's separatist forces.