About 6,000 students of preschool institutions of Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh), about 19 thousand students of public education schools, about 6,800 students of universities have been deprived of one of the most vital rights of the 21st century, the right to education, because for a month the kindergartens, schools, and universities of Nagorno-Karabakh are closed and do not work. This was announced by Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan at Thursday’s Cabinet meeting of the government of Armenia.

"The last time something like this happened was during the 44-day war [in 2020]. And in the situation when the cannons were not firing, the educational institutions were closed only because of the coronavirus pandemic. The reason why educational institutions are not working this time is Azerbaijan's ‘environmental’ concerns. Not content with closing the Lachin corridor [that links Artsakh to Armenia], Azerbaijan also closes the [natural] gas pipeline feeding Nagorno-Karabakh, then opens it by 10 percent, then closes it again, then opens it by 25 percent, and so on. Azerbaijan also continuously uses the tool of [natural] gas pressure, which is clearly reprehensible.

The next reason for not attending kindergarten is the lack of prescribed food for children. This, in turn, is connected with the closure of the Lachin corridor.

The road of life for Nagorno-Karabakh, the Lachin corridor, which was defined by the tripartite declaration of November 9, [2020] and whose uninterrupted operation was given written guarantees by Azerbaijan and Russia, is closed for 46 days now. Normal life in Nagorno-Karabakh has been disrupted for 46 days now, the humanitarian crisis is unfolding at full speed," said Pashinyan.

He added that there are scheduled power outages in Artsakh now because Azerbaijan has also disrupted the work of the lines providing power to Nagorno-Karabakh, and electricity is supplied to the population only at the expense of local electric power, which is not enough.

"Essential goods are supplied to the population [of Artsakh] through the coupon system. With all this, the Azerbaijani authorities pursue one goal: to break the will of Nagorno-Karabakh Armenians to live in their own homeland. Moreover, according to the information we have, Baku's plan is as follows: to bring the economic, psychological pressure in Nagorno-Karabakh to a certain culmination point, after that to [re]open the [Lachin] corridor for a few days, with the expectation that Nagorno-Karabakh Armenians will leave their homes en masse. Close the corridor again and then [re]open it for a few days, and so on until the last Armenian leaves Nagorno-Karabakh. This is, of course, an obvious policy of ethnic cleansing. If until now the international community treated with skepticism our warnings about the ethnic cleansing of the Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh. Now we already see that this perception is slowly but steadily growing stronger among the international community.

I believe that the video of the intimidation—by Azerbaijani masked ‘environmental activists’ on January 17—of the children returning to Nagorno-Karabakh accompanied by peacekeepers, which was distributed by the Azerbaijanis themselves and which was widely spread around the world, also played a role in this regard," the Armenian PM added.