Death toll rises after fuel explosion
Armenians continue to flee breakaway region
GORIS, Armenia — At least 68 people were killed and 105 remained missing after an explosion at a fuel depot in the breakaway Nagorno-Karabakh region of Azerbaijan, the region’s government said Tuesday. The blast occurred as ethnic Armenians rushing to leave the region were lining up to refuel their cars after a military offensive by Azerbaijan last week.
The revised death toll came after an earlier statement by Armenia’s health minister, Anahit Avanesyan, at a news conference Tuesday in which she said that the remains of 125 people had been transferred from Nagorno-Karabakh to forensic centers in Armenia. At least 67 injured people were moved to the country’s national burn center, she added.
The human rights ombudsman of Nagorno-Karabakh, Gegham Stepanyan, later explained in the government’s official channel on the Telegram messaging app that the 125 were war-related deaths. The Armenian Health Ministry also later published a clarification on Facebook.
More than 28,000 people have fled Nagorno-Karabakh for Armenia in the past week, part of a mass exodus that began after a sudden military offensive brought the enclave back under Azerbaijan’s control. The shift in power has raised fears of ethnic violence in a region where decades of interethnic hatred have fueled wars, population shifts, and atrocities.
The explosion at the fuel depot Monday produced a large fire that lit up the night sky near the region’s capital, Stepanakert, and the cause was not immediately clear.
As of 11 p.m. Tuesday local time, the number of deaths confirmed by the Stepanakert Forensic Medical Examination Bureau as a result of the explosion stood at 68, with the identity of 21 victims confirmed.
Earlier, Nagorno-Karabakh’s Health Ministry said in a statement that emergency workers had taken 290 patients “with various degrees of burns” to four medical facilities after the blast Monday night.
Seven of those people died, and 13 bodies were recovered at the site, the ministry said. Dozens were still in critical condition, it added.
The sudden influx of victims added to the stress on medical facilities that were already filled to over capacity before the explosion, according to the ministry and a statement from the International Committee of the Red Cross. The committee said that in addition to delivering medical supplies, including specialized burn kits, its teams were helping to arrange medical evacuations by ambulance.
Many more ethnic Armenians were on their way, stuck in the long line of cars, trucks, and other vehicles navigating a single, winding mountain road to the border.
Standing on Tuesday amid the chaos of a makeshift refugee camp in Kornidzor, the first village on the Armenian side of the border, Samantha Power, head of the US Agency for International Development, urged the government of Azerbaijan to “grant full and unimpeded access” into villages and towns in Nagorno-Karabakh.
Power said the US government would provide $11.5 million in aid, including food and psychological assistance, in the growing emergency. But she also said that she had heard “troubling reports of violence against civilians” and that she would relay the testimonies to the administration in Washington.
While the process of gathering evidence was just beginning, Power said, she did not rule out sanctions against Azerbaijan if evidence supported the claims. “There are a range of options under active consideration,” Power told reporters.
As she spoke, ambulances raced past ferrying patients and aid, and a stream of cars, buses, heavy-duty trucks, and tractors continued to pour out of Nagorno-Karabakh.