HRC 57th Session: Item 3&5: Interactive dialogue with Expert Mechanism on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples – EMRIP - Embassy of Armenia to Switzerland and Permanent Mission of Armenia to the UN office at Geneva

HRC 57th Session: Item 3&5: Interactive dialogue with Expert Mechanism on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples – EMRIP

26 September, 2024

President,

Armenia thanks the Expert Mechanism for its report.

We would like to draw the attention of this august body to the dramatic and alarming demographic shifts that have occurred over the past century in Azerbaijan, particularly concerning the fate of ethnic minorities and indigenous peoples. According to official statistics from 1939, the Azerbaijani ethnic group comprised slightly more than 50% of Azerbaijan’s total population. By 2019, this group accounted for nearly 95%, making Azerbaijan almost a monoethnic country.

This drastic change over the past 80 years raises serious questions about the fate of Azerbaijan’s diverse ethnic communities. Among those affected, we would like to highlight the near-total annihilation of Armenians, who, around 35 years ago, numbered 500,000 in Soviet Azerbaijan. They were massacred and forcibly displaced, culminating in the ethnic cleansing of Nagorno-Karabakh.

The Nakhijevan region was one of the first areas to be not only emptied of its indigenous Armenian population but also stripped of its rich cultural and religious heritage, which has been completely erased. The Guardian newspaper referred to this as “the most extensive campaign of cultural cleansing of the 21st century.”

Thank you.

MFA RA
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