[Congressional Record Volume 156, Number 25 (Thursday, February 25, 2010)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E249]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                     TRAGEDY IN KHOJALY, AZERBAIJAN

                                 ______
                                 

                         HON. SOLOMON P. ORTIZ

                                of texas

                    in the house of representatives

                      Thursday, February 25, 2010

  Mr. ORTIZ. Madam Speaker, I rise today to bring attention to the 
tragedy that occurred in Khojaly, Azerbaijan on February 26, 1992. Many 
lives of the Azerbaijan people living in Khojaly were lost and scores 
of others were destroyed when they were brutally attacked by Armenian 
forces on February 25-26, 1992.
  With a population of 7,000, Khojaly was one of the three largest 
urban settlements of the Nagorno-Karabakh region of Azerbaijan.
  Armenians established the blockade of Khojaly in the fall of 1991, 
cutting off ground transportation on October 30. Electricity and water 
supplies were cut off in January 1992. By February 1992, almost all of 
the Nagorno-Karabakh except Shusha and Khojaly had fallen under control 
of Armenians backed by Russia's 366th regiment.
  On the night of 25 February 1992, the Armenians and the Russian 366th 
launched an attack on Khojaly.
  The Armenians had declared that a ``free corridor'' would be provided 
for civilians to leave Khojaly. However, people were attacked on their 
way to Aghdam, the nearest Azerbaijani settlement.
  The Khojaly tragedy was covered by the foreign media including the 
Boston Globe, the Washington Times, New York Times, Financial Times, 
and many other European and Russian news agencies. On November 29, 
1993, Newsweek quoted a senior U.S. Government official as saying, 
``What we see now is a systematic destruction of every village in their 
[the Armenians] way. It's vandalism.'' Human Rights Watch called the 
tragedy at the time ``the largest massacre to date in the conflict.'' 
The extent of the cruelty of this massacre against women, children and 
the elderly was unfathomable:
  613 people were killed including 63 children, 106 women, and 70 
elderly.
  8 families were wiped out.
  25 children lost both parents.
  130 children lost one parent.
  487 people were wounded including 76 children.
  1,275 people were taken hostage.
  Armenia still occupies close to 20 percent of Azerbaijan. Nearly 1 
million Azerbaijanis live as refugees in their own country, displaced 
by Armenian aggression. Resolutions issued by the U.N. Security Council 
and the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, PACE, have 
ordered Armenia to withdraw from Azerbaijan's lands.
  Azerbaijan is a strong ally of the United States in a very important 
and very uncertain region of the world. I ask my colleagues to join 
with me and our Azerbaijani friends in commemorating the tragedy that 
happened to the people of Khojaly.

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