29.02.2024


RA NA MPs, public figures, scientists, Sumgait massacre witnesses and ordinary citizens paid their respects to the memory of the Armenians who died in the massacres organised in the Azerbaijan SSR, on February 28, the day of remembrance of the victims of the massacres and protection of the rights of the deported Armenian population. They laid flowers near the khachkars erected in memory of the victims of the Sumgait, Kirovabad (Gandzak) and Baku massacres organised by the Azerbaijani government.

A scientific meeting-discussion was held in the Armenian Genocide Museum-Institute conference hall after the flower-laying ceremony. Edita Gzoyan, AGMI Director, greeted the audience, noting that the crimes committed against Armenians on the initiative of and by permission of the Azerbaijani authorities were another consequence of the state's anti-Armenian policy. She added that the same policy, from the blockade of Artsakh to depopulating it of Armenians, was witnessed in our time.

The scientific meeting was conducted by Harutyun Marutyan, doctor of historical sciences, head of the AGMI Department of Armenian Repression in Artsakh, Nakhichevan and Azerbaijan’s Armenian regions. Arsen Hakobyan, a leading researcher in the Republic of Armenia’s National Academy of Sciences Institute of Archeology and Ethnography, provided substantiated facts concerning the unscientific and bankrupt nature of the so-called “Kapan cases” spread by Azerbaijan. Harutyun Marutyun spoke about the role of the Sumgait massacres in the Armenians’ historical and collective memory, noting that they were perceived by the people as a continuation of the genocide perpetrated by the Ottoman Empire. Hranush Kharatyan, a leading researcher in the Republic of Armenia’s National Academy of Sciences Institute of Archeology and Ethnography emphasised the need to define the terms victim and sacrifice, because, according to her, victims are not only those who were killed, but also those who lost their homeland, relatives and those who became disabled. Tatul Mkrtchyan, doctor of economics and Vice Dean of the ASUE Faculty of General Economics, presented the economic losses suffered by Armenians forcibly displaced from Azerbaijan to Armenia in 1988-1992. His speech was followed by that of Mariam Avagyan, candidate of biological sciences and coordinator of the "Assembly of Refugees from the Azerbaijan SSR" NGO, who noted that the 1988 Sumgait pogroms, not receiving an appropriate political and legal evaluation, led to the Armenian massacres in Kirovabad, Baku, Maragha.

Finally, Vilen Gabrielyan, RA NA deputy, President of the Gardman-Shirvan-Nakhijevan pan-Armenian Union spoke, presenting the work carried out by the pan-Armenian Union, adding that the website www.armrefugees.am would soon be available, having been created to compile and map a list of our compatriots forcibly displaced in 1988-1992 and taking refuge in Armenia or abroad.