RA Ambassador-at-Large Edmon Marukyan reacted to the statement of Azerbaijani Presidential Aide Hikmet Hajiyev that people are freely leaving Nagorno-Karabakh.

Marukyan wrote: 

"In an interview with Deutsche Welle, an aide to the Azerbaijani president claims that people are freely leaving Nagorno-Karabakh. I want to understand if there is anyone in the world who believes in this yet another false talk from Azerbaijan.

1. People are leaving because they are being attacked by the Azerbaijani military.
2. People are leaving because their towns and villages are occupied by the Azerbaijani Armed Forces.
3. People are leaving because neither the international community nor Azerbaijan guarantees their rights and security.
4. People are leaving because Azerbaijan has kept 120,000 people, including 30,000 children, besieged and starved for 10 months as part of its ethnic cleansing policy.
5. People are leaving because no one has been punished. for Azerbaijan's war crimes in 2016-2020, and there is no guarantee that beheaders will not move freely through these territories to behead new victims.

I hope it's now more than understandable why people are leaving."