Between May 1, 2016 and February 28, 2017, a total of 20 people were killed in Artsakh, from the shots fired by the adversary. 

The Republic of Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh Republic/NKR) Human Rights Defender (Ombudsman), Ruben Melikyan, stated the aforesaid at a press conference on Saturday. 

“We consider this a very large number,” added Melikyan. “We regularly voice that Azerbaijan continuously allows violations of the ceasefire regime. Our task is to present the situation in an understandable language for the international community, [and] present information about these violations, [and] which we are doing.” 

“In recent months, the border tension was unstable,” added Artsakh’s ombudsman. “But (…) this tension should be used in order to get stronger.”

In his words, their priority is the work towards the human rights violations as a result of the war in April 2016—when Azerbaijan had unleashed a large-scale military aggression against Nagorno-Karabakh, and the respective interim report is published. 

“The important thing here is what we can do, [and] what our mandate is,” noted Ruben Melikyan. “We conducted a fact-finding mission, presented it to the international community, [and] raised the matter. Around 23 cases already have been communicated by the ECtHR [European Court of Human Rights], which is not little.”

The human rights defender of Artsakh added that the material was prepared with international standards, and that human rights activists have used it as information source.