'This Is A Different War': Nagorno-Karabakh Refugee Shudders At Video Showing Neighbors' Execution
Margarita Karamian says her heart went cold when she watched video of two ethnic Armenian men being being shot dead a few hundred meters from her home in Hadrut -- a town that was caught at the front lines of the war over Azerbaijan's breakaway region of Nagorno-Karabakh.
She watched one video that showed Azeri-speaking soldiers detain 73-year-old Benik Hakobian near his home on the north side of Hadrut along with Yuri Adamian, a 25-year-old from the nearby village of Tyaq. She knew both men.
Then Karamian watched a second video of them being shot by a firing squad at a small park in the center of Hadrut, just southeast of the region's main city, Stepanakert.
"I don't remember who sent me those horrible videos," Karamian told RFE/RL from Yerevan, where she'd fled shortly before the killings. "I opened it [online] and started watching. I reached the point where they tell Yura to take off his clothes and they push Benik to the ground. And after that I stopped. I couldn't watch any more of it."
"Then I forced myself to watch the murder scene, just to be sure that it was them," Karamian said.
"Terrible. It was terrible. But it was not unexpected," Karamian said. "We have already seen so many terrible things that we seem to have become a type of zombie."
"It is very unpleasant that we look at all of this cold-heartedly," she said. "But regardless, when you get to know a person and then you see what they did to him, it's awful."
'Undeniable War Crime Evidence'
The gruesome footage was first posted to an anonymous Russian-language, pro-Azerbaijani Telegram channel on October 15.
The original post included a description claiming the two were captured ethnic Armenian soldiers.
That video was quickly removed from the social-media platform after Azerbaijan’s Defense Ministry issued a statement declaring it was a fake "provocation."
The next day, the Prosecutor-General's Office in Baku said an investigation had concluded that the video was fake.
But the footage has been archived and authenticated by British open source investigators at Bellingcat in an exhaustive process.
It also has been separately authenticated by the BBC, which quoted a former British military intelligence officer who said there is no doubt the video shows "a real killing."
He said the killings in Hadrut reveal the "Azerbaijani military's inhuman treatment of Armenian prisoners."
Copyright (c) 2010-2020. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036.
ecoi.net-Beschreibung:
Artikel zur Verifizierung eines Videos, das Tötung von 2 ethnisch armenischen Männern in Bergkarabach zeigt