STEPANAKERT. – The European Ombudsman Institute (EOI) issued an official statement criticizing Azerbaijan’s atrocities, and posted on its website the interim report by the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic (NKR/Artsakh) Human Rights Defender (Ombudsman).

Staff of the NKR Ombudsman informed Armenian News-NEWS.am that the EOI also condemned “any violation of human rights regarding civilians” in Nagorno-Karabakh.

The EOI expressed its concern “by the information that civilian citizens of Nagorno-Karabakh were inhumanly treated [by Azerbaijan] without any respect and by that offended in their dignity.”

The EOI also reflected on Azerbaijan’s “attacks on civilian objects in Nagorno-Karabakh,” especially on schools and kindergartens, and its “brutal operations” against children and elderly persons, noting that these operations “constitute gross violations of human rights; they are opposed to European human rights and human values,” and the “legal norms of international humanitarian law.”  

The Office of the NKR Human Rights Defender is an EOI member since 2009.