HRC 55: Item 3 – ID with SR on Housing - Embassy of Armenia to Switzerland and Permanent Mission of Armenia to the UN office at Geneva

HRC 55: Item 3 – ID with SR on Housing

05 March, 2024

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

Mr. President,

Right to adequate housing is about ensuring that people have access to basic services, including clean water, sanitation, and healthcare. It is also about providing a safe and secure environment where people can live without fear of eviction or displacement. For years Azerbaijan did its utmost for violating these rights of the people of Nagorno-Karabakh. The ethnic cleansing that it perpetrated was the culmination of this policy. It was proceeded by the armed attacks and destruction of the civilian infrastructure, houses, schools, hospitals. They were described, in particular, in the report of the Human Rights Watch entitled “Unlawful Strikes in Nagorno-Karabakh.”

Later Azerbaijan imposed a ten-months long siege of Nagorno-Karabakh dooming its population to starvation. In wintertime they were left with no electricity, no gas, no medicine. When Azerbaijan attacked them again in September 2023 people were displaced leaving everything behind. “They had no choice but to do so immediately” the report of the Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights concluded.

Today social media is full of short videos depicting how the houses and public buildings in Nagorno-Karabakh were looted, vandalized and demolished further violating the right to adequate housing.

Thank you.

Right of Reply

Mr. President,

Armenia exercises its right of reply to Azerbaijan.

For years Azerbaijan has been violating the right of adequate housing of the Armenian population. First, it committed massacres and forcibly displaced Armenians from towns of Sumgait, Baku, Kirovabad and others. Then it attacked people of Nagorno-Karabakh. Overall, there were around 500.000 Armenians living in Soviet Azerbaijan. There are almost no Armenians living in Azerbaijan today. A number of human rights of these people, including the housing rights were severely violated.

The culmination of this policy was the ethnic cleansing of the people of Nagorno-Karabakh last September. The representatives of the UNHCR reported from the ground how these exhausted and starved people reached Armenia in full desperation. The IOM reported in particular that “many of those who sought refuge in Armenia undertook arduous journeys, often walking for days and finding shelter in caves or basements, enduring extremely challenging conditions. There were reports of malnutrition, particularly among the elderly and among children.”

Armenia sheltered around 145.000 refugees from Nagorno-Karabakh who were displaced in 2020 and 2023. The Government has been praised by international partners and institutions for its efforts in meeting the needs of refugees. This came in addition to the large-scale housing program implemented by the Government in providing ‘housing purchase certificates’ for refugees forcibly displaced by Azerbaijan in 1988-1992.

Meanwhile, Azerbaijan has been openly engaged in the ethno-demographic engineering in the Armenian villages and towns that it captured. It continues the destruction of Armenian monuments in a sheer defiance to the ruling of the ICJ “to prevent and punish acts of vandalism and desecration affecting Armenian cultural heritage.” Recently, Azerbaijan removed the statue of the world famous Armenian-French artist Charles Aznavour. He, probably, too is viewed by Azerbaijan as an Armenian terrorist.

On September 2022, the armed forces of Azerbaijan launched large-scale military offensive inside the sovereign territory of the Republic of Armenia. Azerbaijan targeted residential areas and civilian infrastructures indiscriminately shelling on houses, and administrative buildings. Due to subsequent occupation of territories of Armenia the rights to housing of people residing in close vicinity to the occupied areas have been further violated.

Azerbaijan continues to threaten the human rights of Armenian population living in the border areas. This requires an adequate reaction of the international community, especially in the light of gross violations of international law committed by Azerbaijan in Nagorno-Karabakh.

Thank you.

MFA RA
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