Armenian enclave fuel blast kills 68 as thousands flee
AT least 68 people died in Monday’s fuel depot explosion in Nagorno-karabakh, the office of the region’s ombudsman said yesterday, as thousands fled the area after a successful Azerbaijani offensive.
Earlier, several media outlets cited the Armenian health minister as saying that the death toll had risen to 125 after Karabakh authorities put the toll at 20 people dead as of yesterday morning.
In the latest update, the office of Karabakh’s ombudsman, Gegham Stepanyan, said 105 people were still missing and nearly 300 had been injured in the blast.
The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said that the explosion had resulted in hundreds of burn victims. The ICRC said that it was delivering medical assistance to those suffering from burns and evacuating some people by ambulance, citing full hospitals and traffic as challenges. The Azerbaijani presidency said Baku had also sent medicine to help the wounded.
It came as hundreds of vehicles were heading to Armenia from Nagorno-karabakh, following Azerbaijan’s lightning offensive against the separatist enclave, witnesses on the border said.
The flow of vehicles was continuous, with families piling their belongings on top of their cars and stopping for only a few seconds at the last Azerbaijani checkpoint before entering Armenia along the so-called Lachin corridor.
Armenia said that more than 28,000 refugees had fled since a first group arrived in the country on Sunday. The influx overwhelmed the border town of Goris, where many refugees are staying.
Many slept in their cars laden with luggage, emerging yesterday with redrimmed eyes and forming long queues outside phone shops to buy SIM cards.
Azerbaijan has pledged equal treatment for residents of the majority ethnic Armenian enclave and has sent aid.
Meanwhile, in Brussels, envoys from Baku and Yerevan prepared to meet for the first time since Azerbaijan’s swift defeat of separatist forces last week.