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Casualties, Accusations Mount in Nagorno-Karabakh Conflict

Heather Murdock

   GORIS, ARMENIA - After a bomb blast about four days ago, Angela
   Hovakimyan, 83, and her two daughters fled their homes in the
   Nagorno-Karabakh region, where Armenia and Azerbaijan have been
   fighting for nearly two weeks.

   Two people died in the blast, and much of the house was destroyed.

   "Everything fell on my head," Hovakimyan said Thursday in a
   kindergarten-turned-temporary shelter. "The doors, the windows."

   One of her daughters, Evelina Sangsyan, pulled up the sleeve of her
   mother's black cardigan, revealing what appeared to be small cuts from
   the blast. Hovakimyan quickly pushed it down.

   "There are thousands in my condition," she said, scolding. "Are we all
   going to die in '¦ other people's homes?"

   Peace talks are set to begin in Geneva, but the fighting in
   Nagorno-Karabakh appears to be intensifying, with thousands of people
   fleeing into both Armenia and Azerbaijan.

   Azerbaijani forces recently took over several villages and settlements
   in the largely self-governing enclave, which lies within its
   internationally recognized borders but is populated mainly by ethnic
   Armenians who call it the Republic of Artsakh.

   Azerbaijan describes the territory as "illegally occupied," but Armenia
   says it is an independent region under the protection of Armenia and
   that no significant amount of land has been gained or lost in this
   conflict.

   Off-and-on conflict between Azerbaijan and Armenia over the fate of
   Nagorno-Karabakh began roughly 30 years ago, after the Soviet Union
   fell and new borders were drawn. But this fight is different than other
   clashes that have occasionally flared up since the 1990s, according to
   Armenian officials.

   "This is a large-scale war," Artsrun Hovhannisyan, a spokesperson for
   the Armenian Ministry of Defense, said in a press conference Wednesday.
   "In the past 20 or 30 years, there has not been such dense military
   activity."

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