Maraga Massacre

Maragha Massacre
Azerbaijan
Location	Maraga, Azerbaijan, Nagorno-Karabakh
Coordinates	40°19′18″N 46°54′20″E
Date	April 10, 1992
Target	Local Armenian population
Death(s)	At least 40
Injured	Unknown
Perpetrator(s)	Azerbaijani Armed Forces

The Maragha Massacre was the April 10, 1992 killing of a number of ethnic Armenians, during the capture of the village of Maragha by Azerbaijani troops, in the course of the Nagorno-Karabakh War.^[1][2] Estimates differ as to how many Armenians were killed, as well as how many people from the village were subsequently kidnapped, although most sources report that at least forty civilians were killed and a further fifty-three taken hostage.^[3][4][5]

Motivations regarding the massacre remain unclear, although the attack may have been an act of retaliation following the massacre at Khojaly in February of that year.^[6]

Attack on the village

A preliminary investigation, carried out by Human Rights Watch (HRW, Helsinki Watch) and published in 1992, reconstructed the events leading up to the attack on Maraghar. Having spoken to the only eyewitness available to them at the time, an Armenian fighter who took part in the village's self-defense, the report outlined that Maraghar's self-defense detachments were unable to hold their positions when units of the Azerbaijani army attacked the village on April 10.^[7] They were forced to retreat to a spot overlooking the village, while the civilians who remained, mainly consisting of the elderly and the disabled, took shelter in basements and underground shelters. The Azerbaijani army captured Maraghar the same day, but it was retaken by the Armenians the following day. Upon re-entering the village, the Armenian fighters reported that they came across the bodies of forty-three civilians, some of whom were missing eyes or decapitated, and heard reports that several others were taken hostage.^[7] The bodies were buried in a mass grave near the village.

Investigations

Human rights groups

Accounts differ on precisely how many people were killed in the attack. A 1993 Country Dossier Report by Amnesty International gave forty-five as the number of those killed.^[8] According to Gevorg Petrossian, Chairman of the Parliament of Nagorno-Karabakh Republic, 53 civilians were killed as a result of the attack, although the 1992 report by HRW expressed uncertainty as to whether those reported killed were civilians or self-defense fighters.^[7] It assumed, however, that the figure included the forty-three Armenians who were killed by the Azerbaijanis.^[7] In 1992, HRW received a report that fifty Armenians had been taken hostage in the attack on Maraghar.^[9]

Baroness Cox and Christian Solidarity Worldwide

Baroness Caroline Cox, an advocate of the Armenian cause in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict,^[10] who led a delegation that observed the damage and interviewed eyewitnesses, stated that after Azerbaijani forces attacked Maragha, they decapitated about forty five villagers, burned and looted much of the town, and kidnapped about one hundred women and children.^[11] A more detailed report of the findings of Cox and Christian Solidarity Worldwide was published in 1993.

Maraghar: the name of this village is associated with a massacre which never reached the world’s headlines, although at least 45 Armenians died cruel deaths. During the CSI mission to Nagorno Karabakh in April, news came through that a village in the north, in Martakert region, had been overrun by Azeri-Turks on April 10 and there had been a number of civilians killed. A group went to obtain evidence and found a village with survivors in a state of shock, their burn-out homes still smoldering, charred remains of corpses and vertebrae still on the ground, where people had their heads sawn off, and their bodies burnt in front of their families. 45 people had been massacred and 100 were missing, possibly suffering a fate worse than death. In order to verify the stories, the delegation asked the villagers if they would exhume the bodies which they had already buried. In great anguish, they did so, allowing photographs to be taken of the decapitated, charred bodies. Later when asked about publicizing the tragedy, they replied they were reluctant to do so as 'we Armenians are not very good at showing our grief to the world.'^[12]

Gallery

• 

  A monument for the victims of the massacre in Nor Maragha village.

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  A monument in the village of Nor Maragha, built in honor of the Armenian defenders of Maragha.

See also

• List of massacres in Azerbaijan
• Sumgait pogrom
• Kirovabad pogrom
• Khojaly Massacre
• Nagorno-Karabakh War
• Anti-Armenianism

Notes

1. ^ De Waal, Thomas. Black Garden: Armenia and Azerbaijan Through War and Peace. New York: New York University Press, 2003, pp. 175-176.
2. ^ (Russian) "Хронология Карабахского конфликта, 1992 год ("The Chronology of the Karabakh Conflict, 1992")." BBC Russian. Last updated August 29, 2005. Retrieved December 20, 2010.
3. ^ De Waal. Black Garden, p. 176.
4. ^ Human Rights Watch/Helsinki (1994). Azerbaijan: Seven years of conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh. New York: Human Rights Watch. p. 6. ISBN 1564321428. http://books.google.com/books?id=4ipKwifQaNIC&printsec=frontcover&dq=Azerbaijan:+Seven+years+of+conflict+in+Nagorno-Karabakh&hl=en&ei=kbYSTfHwMoeqsAOAu-yICg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CCgQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q&f=false. 
5. ^ Amnesty International. "Azerbaydzhan: Hostages in the Karabakh conflict: Civilians Continue to Pay the Price." Amnesty International. April 1993 (POL 10/01/93), p. 9.
6. ^ Melkonian, Markar (2005). My Brother’s Road: An American’s Fateful Journey to Armenia. New York: I.B.Tauris. p. 214. ISBN 1850436355. http://books.google.com/books?id=6-RtAAAAMAAJ. 
7. ^ ^{a b c d} Denber, Rachel; Goldman, Robert K. (1992). Bloodshed in the Caucasus: escalation of the armed conflict in Nagorno Karabakh. New York: Helsinki Watch. p. 29. ISBN 1564320812. http://books.google.com/books?id=ywAU3VomIpkC&pg=PA29. 
8. ^ Amnesty International. "Country Dossier List 1993 Europe . Amnesty International.
9. ^ Human Rights Watch/Helsinki. Azerbaijan: Seven years of conflict, p. 92.
10. ^ Great Britain, Parliament, House of Lords (1999). The parliamentary debates (Hansard): official report, Volume 598. H.M.S.O.. ISBN 0107805987. http://books.google.com/books?id=x5cNAQAAIAAJ. "Baroness Cox: "It is clear that I am an unashamed advocate of the Armenian cause in Karabakh. That is born of direct experience and grounded in evidence. In Christian Solidarity Worldwide, we try to emulate Andrei Sakharov"" 
11. ^ Cox, Caroline. "Survivors of the Maraghar Massacre." Christianity Today. April 27, 1998. Retrieved December 20, 2010.
12. ^ Cox, Caroline and John Eibner. Ethnic Cleansing in Progress: War in Nagorno Karabakh. Zurich and Washington D.C.: Institute for Religious Minorities in the Islamic World, p. 58, 1993.

External links

• Maragha.org
• Marghar.nk
• Photographs of the Maraghar Massacre – Warning: Graphic Content
• Ethnic cleansing in Nagorno-Karabakh Conflict
• UK House of Commons report
• Survivors of Maraghar massacre: It was truly like a contemporary Golgotha many times over
• Interview with Caroline Cox on YouTube