Following its conquest of Nagorno Karabakh, Baku has in recent weeks destroyed a historic church and a cemetery in the town of Shushi, satellite images show. Its actions violate an order from the International Court of Justice.
The St. John the Baptist church was 177 years old. csi
Azerbaijan has begun destroying Christian sites in Nagorno Karabakh, one of the oldest Christian communities in the world, which it captured from Armenia in September 2023. The campaign of destruction comes despite assurances to the international community that Baku would protect and preserve the region’s religious heritage.
Last September, Azerbaijan attacked Nagorno Karabakh after a nine-month siege, killing hundreds and forcing its 100,000 Armenian Christian inhabitants to flee to neighboring Armenia. It had previously fought two wars with Armenia over the territory, in 1988-94 and in 2020.
Satellite imagery dated April 4 shows that the Ghazanchetsots cemetery in Shushi no longer exists, Caucasus Heritage Watch (CHW) reported in a “destruction alert” posted to X, formerly Twitter, on April 19. This is the third cemetery destroyed since the 2020 ceasefire, the monitoring and research program said. It added that four other cemeteries have suffered damage.
The desecration of Ghazanchetsots, which dates to the 18th century, began in October, CHW said. “At that point, it was not too late to stop the destruction. But by December 2023 it [the cemetery] was almost gone.”
CHW commented that the bulldozing of Armenian burial sites was “an emerging feature of post-war development in Azerbaijan’s Karabakh, disturbing ancestors and erasing inconvenient testimony to belonging and coexistence.”
In an earlier alert, on April 18, CHW announced that Baku had razed a 177-year-old landmark in Shushi – the historic St. John the Baptist church.
Built by the Armenians in 1847, the church suffered damage in the 2020 war. After Shushi fell to Azerbaijan in the war, the Russian Orthodox Church laid claim to the building and had reportedly begun restoring it.
Satellite images CHW shared online showed the building was still standing on December 28. By April 4, however, it had completely disappeared.
Satellite images showing the destruction of the St. John the Baptist church. CHW
Satellite imagery released on April 4 also shows the complete destruction of the village of Karin Tak in Nagorno Karabakh. The centuries-old village, which was also close to Shushi, had been home to 160 Armenian families, all of whom were forced to flee during Azerbaijan’s 2020 attack on Nagorno Karabakh.
Satellite photos show that Azerbaijan has completely destroyed the Armenian village of Karin Tak. Monument Watch
The heritage watchdog described the razing of the St. John the Baptist church as “Azerbaijan’s most egregious violation yet” of an order by the International Court of Justice (ICJ).
On December 7, 2021 the ICJ ruled on Azerbaijan’s obligations under the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination. Point 1 (c) of the order states that Baku must “take all necessary measures to prevent and punish acts of vandalism and desecration affecting Armenian cultural heritage, including but not limited to churches and other places of worship, monuments, landmarks, cemeteries and artefacts.”
Azerbaijan’s human rights record was subject to a Universal Periodic Review (UPR) by the 55th Session of the United Nations Human Rights Council, which took place in Geneva from February 26 to April 5. The UPR Working Group issued 319 recommendations, of which Baku accepted 185 and “noted” or did not support 134.
“Azerbaijan continues its protection and preservation efforts of cultural sites throughout Garabagh [Nagorno Karabakh] and continues to work to restore safe access to cultural sites on an equal basis,” Baku said in its response to the UPR.
“These acts of wanton destruction show that Azerbaijan has no intention of keeping its lofty promises about preserving Nagorno Karabakh’s heritage,” Joel Veldkamp of Christian Solidarity International commented. “They also show that Azerbaijan is not in the least worried about how its friends in the West will react to this ISIS-style erasure of Christian history.”
“Nagorno Karabakh is home to some of the world’s oldest and most historically significant Christian churches, monasteries, and monuments,” Veldkamp continued. “We may yet see a campaign of near-total destruction of Armenian heritage sites, as we saw in Nakhichevan, where Azerbaijan demolished every single church, monastery, and cross-stone between 1997 and 2005.”
If Western states wish to prevent this, Veldkamp said, “they should pressure Azerbaijan to work with UNESCO and the Armenian Apostolic Church to ensure preservation of and access to religious sites in Nagorno Karabakh, so that Armenian Christians may exercise their religious freedoms.”
