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On the eve of the arrival of troops from Azerbaijan, the inhabitants of the village of Charektar, near Nagorno-Karabakh, set fire to their homes before fleeing to Armenia.
“Today is the last day and tomorrow the Azerbaijani soldiers will be here,” explains one of the inhabitants, with a narrow throat, as he dips an old shirt in petrol and sets it on fire with a piece of wood, contemplating the fire in the his home.
Although the flames are already consuming much of the room, the man is throwing burning boards to make sure everything is in ashes, AFP reports.
“This is my home, I can’t leave it to the Turks,” he shoots, referring to the way Armenians call Azeris.
“Everyone is burning their houses today (…) They gave us until midnight to leave,” he adds.
On Tuesday, Yerevan and Baku signed a peace agreement after the intervention of Russia, which ended six weeks of war e provides for the handover to Azerbaijan of several territories occupied by Armenia in the conflict between 1992 and 1994.
At the same time, Armenia will retain control of the Nagorno-Karabakh enclave, where 150,000 people lived before the conflict began on September 27.
However, Yerevan loses control of the second city Shushi (Shushá for Armenians), which was conquered in the last days of this conflict by Azerbaijani forces.
In the border area with Nagorno-Karabakh, the village of Charektar marks the entrance to the Kalvajar region, a narrow valley that winds along the Tartarus River at the foot of high mountains and steep cliffs.
Being one of the main inhabited areas, more than half of the houses in that village, many of them modest mountain peasant houses, were set on fire in the last 24 hours by their owners before leaving with as many personal effects as possible.
It is not yet clear when and how the Azerbaijani forces will arrive. The Nagorno-Karabakh authorities have ensured that the road to Kalvajar, at this point the only road connecting the enclave with Armenia, remains under their control and Russian soldiers circulate there.
On this same road, migration is high and traffic is incessant towards the Armenian border town, Vardenis.
The Kalvajar military base is also about to be abandoned and is experiencing moments of turmoil. The soldiers still present are packing ammunition, moving damaged vehicles and collecting whatever they can and even burning papers.
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