54 HRC - Biennial panel on unilateral coercive measures - Embassy of Armenia to Switzerland and Permanent Mission of Armenia to the UN office at Geneva

54 HRC - Biennial panel on unilateral coercive measures

14 September, 2023

Delivered by Ms. Lilit Toutkhalian, Minister Extraordinary and Envoy Plenipotentiary

Mr. President,

The unilateral coercive measures are implemented continuously to create unbearable conditions for the people with the sole purpose of bending them into submission, driving them out from their ancestral homes, depriving them of the right to master their own present and future.

This is the case of the application of the unilateral coercive measures by Azerbaijan against the peaceful population of Nagorno-Karabakh, ethnic Armenians who have been living on the land of their ancestors for millennia. We are witnessing a classical example of an attempt to conduct ethnic cleansing through coercive measures against the Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh who for the last nine months have been left without food, essentials, and medication, due to the inhume blockade of the Lachin Corridor. The supplies of gas and electricity also have been cut off, and the local cultivation of agricultural products has been seriously hampered by military attacks.

This constitutes a gross violation of a number of human rights, including the rights to food, health, education, movement, adequate standard of living, right to life itself. Coercive measures employed by Azerbaijan have long-reaching aim: to damage the health of 120000 Armenians to the point when they will not be able to resist the pressure and their normal reproduction will become next to impossible, resulting in declining numbers of the indigenous people which, in turn, will make them an easy prey.

I will conclude with an excerpt from recent report of the Freedom House (I quote): “Azerbaijan’s blockade of the Lachin Corridor risks ethnic cleansing of the region’s Armenian population and is exacerbating the ongoing humanitarian crisis in Nagorno-Karabakh.”

Thank you.

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