Azeris Wrestle Over Return to Abandoned Towns, Decades After First Nagorno-Karabakh Conflict With Armenia

AGDAM, Azerbaijan—Some 30 several years on from the war that saw Armenian forces drive hundreds of hundreds of Azeris from their households in and around the conflict-torn enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh, many hope they can soon return soon after Azerbaijan regained considerably of the surrounding area in a counteroffensive last drop.

But for Sayali Pashayeva, and other individuals like her, that desire is clouded by questions these kinds of as where they would reside in the rubble-strewn border territories, and irrespective of whether they could realistically carve out a new livelihood on their return.

“I thank God for making it possible for me the risk of returning to die on my individual land,” reported Mrs. Pashayeva, seventy four several years old, on her first take a look at again to Agdam, at the time home to her household and 40,000 other men and women. Her son and daughter unfurled a red rug from the trunk, a reward for the community mosque, the only building remaining standing listed here, about 3½ miles from the border with Nagorno-Karabakh, even now officially underneath the regulate of ethnic-Armenians. The money there, Stepanakert, is monitored by Russian peacekeepers.

“For 30 several years, we have waited for this minute,” Mrs. Pashayev’s son, Alastun Pashayev, 45, reported. Azerbaijan secured regulate Agdam and a number of other areas in and around the disputed enclave throughout a bloody six-week battle before Russia brokered a stop-fireplace in November.

In fact returning won’t be straightforward. Mr. Pashayev suggests he is familiar with his $135-a-thirty day period in incapacity payments and pension paid to displaced men and women won’t be more than enough to reclaim the lifetime he misplaced in Adgam three many years ago, when he was even now a youngster.