The Khojaly genocide was the worst mass massacre of the innocent civilian population in Europe since the Second World War, Hikmet Hajiyev, Assistant to the President of Azerbaijan, Head of the Foreign Policy Affairs Department of the Presidential Administration, said on X, News.Az reports.
“Over the night of 25–26 February 1992, as a result of the attack and capture of the Khojaly town by the armed forces of Armenia supported by the regiment No.366 of the former USSR, 613 Azerbaijani civilians were mercilessly killed, including 106 women, 63 children and 70 elderly people. Another 1,000 people were wounded, and 1,275 people were taken hostage. To this day, 150 people from Khojaly remain missing,” Hajiyev said.
The presidential aide stressed that the deliberate mass massacre of Azerbaijani civilians perpetrated by the armed forces of Armenia in the town of Khojaly in February 25-26, 1992 is a “genocide” and a “crime against humanity”.
“The crimes committed in Khojaly were not an isolated or sporadic act but an integral part of Armenia’s widespread and systematic policy and practice of ethnic cleansing,” he said.
Hajiyev emphasized that the Khojaly genocide was the worst mass massacre of the innocent civilian population in Europe since the Second World War.
“The Khojaly genocide took place in the conditions of complete silence and indifference of the international community. Justice for the victims of Khojaly was ensured by the state of Azerbaijan itself. Khojaly was freed from occupation in September 2023, and a group of masterminders and perpetrators of this crime will soon be brought to justice. But our biggest consolation is that Khojaly survivors and each and every citizen of Azerbaijan can now visit liberated Khojaly and the entire Karabakh and Eastern Zangezur freely and with dignity and pride,” he added.
