Berlin, Mar. 25, (dpa/GNA) – At least two people were injured in an explosion at a police station in the Armenian capital Yerevan on Sunday, after three armed men forced their way in to demand the release of some 50 people arrested earlier in the day, according to police.
Two of the attackers were injured when a hand grenade detonated, police spokesman Narek Sarkisyan was quoted as saying by Russian state news agency TASS. They were brought to hospital for treatment.
The third attacker was overpowered and disarmed by special forces inside the station in Yerevan’s Nor-Norka district after lengthy, unsuccessful negotiations, he said.
According to the police, the intruders as well as their detained comrades are members of the Combat Brotherhood militia. They had been looking to travel to the border with Azerbaijan in the morning to hinder the handing over of four villages in the contested Nagorno-Karabakh region to Azerbaijan.
The Caucasus rivals Armenia and Azerbaijan were once both part of the Soviet Union. Fighting has broken several times over the decades, particularly in Nagorno-Karabakh, a mountainous region that had been governed by ethnic Armenians.
Azerbaijan conquered Nagorno-Karabakh in a lightening offensive last year. More than 100,000 ethnic Armenians fled the advancing army, fearing what they described as the threat of “ethnic cleansing.”