Geneva, Oct. 3, (dpa/GNA) – The Red Cross is looking for people in distress left behind in the Nagorno-Karabakh region of Azerbaijan, ICRC spokesman Marco Succi said via video link from Stepanakert in the region on Tuesday.
A bedridden woman had been found in her home, after the relief organization patrolled the streets with a loud hailer, he told journalists in Geneva.
The woman was taken by ambulance to Armenia, where virtually all the former residents of the mountain region have fled over recent days. She had survived on supplies of food and drink left by neighbours who were unable to take her with them. Those supplies had run out, the Red Cross said.
Succi said that only a few hundred people remained behind in the remote region and that Azerbaijani police could be seen on the streets.
Electrical power and water supplies were working, and Azeris were moving into abandoned homes, he said. Almost all the 120,000 Armenian residents have fled.
Last month, Azerbaijan launched a military offensive in the contested region, forcing the capitulation of the self-styled Republic of Artsakh, which is not internationally recognized. Its Armenian leaders announced that the republic would be dissolved from the start of next year.
GNA